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THE HILLS OF GOD 










THE HILLS OF GOD 


BY 

MILES HANSON 

* « 

Author of The Power Behind, Out of 
Old Paths, etc. 





PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES 


THE BEACON PRESS, Inc. 
25 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. 


NEW YORK 


CHICAGO 


SAN FRANCISCO 




3 Xq?43 

.H43 \\5 


Copyright, 1923 

by THE BEACON PRESS, Inc. 


All rights reserved 





NOV 17 23 


©Cl A7 59SC8 





To Dr. ARCHIBALD DUFF 


MY HELPER AND FRIEND IN COLLEGE 
AND THROUGH ALL SUBSEQUENT YEARS 





PREFACE 


The following sermons, preached in the First Church 
in Roxbury during the winter of 1922 and 1923, are pub¬ 
lished at the desire of the Roxbury Women’s Alliance, 
who would not listen to my protests against such a pro¬ 
cedure. 

Preached from notes, they owe their existence in per¬ 
manent form to the skill and constancy of Miss Jeannette 
Soule to whom our thanks and acknowledgments of 
service and faithfulness cannot be overstressed. 

When Miss Soule’s copies reached me to revise for 
printing, a problem presented itself; should the sermons 
be printed practically as delivered—short curt sentences 
with no literary beauties, or should I carefully remould 
and reshape more in accordance with literary demands? 
If I took the latter course the sermons would read better, 
if I took the former they would be more myself, and fit 
in better with the memories abiding with the speaker and 
listener. 

Readers of a former volume of sermons have often 
written me and said, “As we read we could hear and see 
you.” I have left the sermons as delivered so that my 
friends may perchance see and hear me as they read. 

I hope that the sermons will assist some who are try¬ 
ing to solve a few of the problems of life. 

Miles Hanson. 






SALUTATION 

Greetings from the First Church in Roxbury, founded 
in 1632. John Eliot, the spiritually-minded Apostle to the 
Indians, was our first Teacher, and continued his fruitful 
labors for fifty-eight years. His devout and worthy succes¬ 
sor preached these sermons in the First Church. We heard 
them. We know the reader will be deeply impressed. 

; Frank W. Mendum 
Chairman of the Standing Committee. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface . 7 

The Great Offensive.13 

The Home Life of Jesus.23 

Can We Still Follow Jesus?.36 

The Stone Which the Builders Refused ... 49 

Jesus, the Founder of Our Freedom.59 

Compulsion behind Judas and Jesus.71 

The Wages of Sin.79 

The Critics of the Bible.89 

Tpiwarted Ambition.103 

Evil, Suffering, the True Conception of Salva¬ 
tion .116 

The Problem of Divine Justice.127 

The Infallibilities of Life.137 

Being Rich and Having Nothing.148 

Such as I Have, I Give.161 

Man’s Search after God.172 

The Immortal Truths of Christianity .... 182 

Chance and Deserts.193 

Thanksgiving and Its Responsibilities .... 206 

The Inspiration of Loneliness.216 

Personal Consecration to Service.227 

Messages From the Church Calendar .... 237 






















THE GREAT OFFENSIVE 


After a period of silent prayer we will join together in 
prayer. 

We thank Thee, Father, for the times when we have met 
with Thee within these walls. We thank Thee for the times 
when we have touched the hem of the Divine garment and 
felt again made whole. And we pray that to-day the ex¬ 
periences that we have known in the past may be repeated; 
no, may be surpassed. May we as never before experience 
Thy nearness; may we as never before experience Thy bless¬ 
ing. Help us to seek Thee with all our heart and soul 
and mind. Forgetting everything else, may we seek the 
highest things, the highest life, and put aside all that is 
lower. May we truly be in the Holy of Holies, and thus 
be helped to lead a holy life. And so may we go forth holy 
in purpose, pure in heart, and consecrated to help. Amen. 

In the Gospel according to St. Mark, chapter viii, and 
verse 31, we find these words: “The Son of man must 
suffer many things, . . . and be killed, and the third 
day rise again.” “The Son of man must suffer many 
things, and be killed, and the third day rise again.” 

That necessity “must” recurs frequently throughout 
the life of Jesus. It is very apparent that he felt, all the 
way through, that he was compelled to suffer and at last 
to die. Why ? That question has been asked ever since. 
Why? And the general answer that has been given has, 
of course, been a theological one. The answer has been 

13 


14 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


made to fit in with a theory or a philosophy of life. I 
have never yet been satisfied with any theological theory. 
There is always something behind it to my mind, that 
holds me back from giving full allegiance. But I have 
been reading lately a book by the Chaplain of Mans¬ 
field College, Oxford—a Congregational training college, 
and he has given me a rather new suggestion in answer 
to that question, Why must Jesus suffer? Why? And 
I want in my own words to give very largely his answer. 

I find that it is always helpful to see Jesus just as a 
man, to put ourselves, as it were, in his place. 

We have a young man living in a little village, working 
hard at manual labor, for we almost know that his father 
died early and that his mother was left with a family of 
little folks, and the eldest boy had to work—hard—to 
keep the house together. He made just the simple in¬ 
struments that an agriculturist would require. And we 
can see him, day by day, in that very simple shop working 
and toiling probably hard, a little different from most of 
the young men by being quieter, by loving to be alone, 
and I feel pretty sure that every evening he set out for a 
long walk over the hills alone. He was, I am sure, very 
kindly and liked by the folks in the village, but still a 
little bit marvelled at from his life of quietude and of 
thoughtfulness. I can imagine he said very little, but 
thought a good deal. 

By and by, when he was about twenty-seven or eight, 
he felt impelled to go out and teach. There was another 
young man about his age preaching, and the two became 
associated—John the Baptist. And John made a strange 


THE GREAT OFFENSIVE 


15 

prophecy, that this Jesus, this village young man, was the 
promised Messiah. Everything was ready for a revolu¬ 
tion, just as ready as it was in Russia when the Czar was 
put on one side. Everything was ready. John appears, 
a violent, earnest, telling preacher. Jesus appears. 
And John says, ‘‘This is the man to lead.” 

The two men—about the same age—evidently taught 
about the same way, I mean the same truths. They said, 
“Beware of evil that you have done, and turn around and 
live in the right spirit.” That, apparently, was the same 
foundation for both men—Repent! Repent! John was 
the violent preacher of the two, a typical—typical, I was 
going to say, Evangelistic preacher. Jesus, I expect, 
taught very much more quietly. John, with his ardor 
and enthusiasm and bravery, very soon got into difficulty. 
Herod was living a wrong life, and John attacked him. 
You know the end. John was put into prison. What 
should Jesus do? I can imagine the whole of the would- 
be revolutionists asking that question. “What is Jesus 
going to do now? His companion is thrown into prison, 
what is he going to do about it ? Why should he not do 
the favorite thing of the world, storm the Bastile, and set 
John free?” That was the way of a brave man, surely. 
All he had to do was to call together his forces and go and 
free John, and to say that Herod, the King, was not to 
put John to death. Or, perhaps, why not something like 
what those Cornish men did ? Perhaps you remember, in 
your history. James the Second ordered the Bishops to 
read the “Declaration of Indulgence,” the Bishops re¬ 
fused, and James put seven of them in prison. Amongst 


16 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


the seven was the Bishop of Bristol—by the name of 
Trelawney. The Cornish men rose at once in defence of 
their Bishop, and they composed this song: 

“And shall Trelawney die, and shall 
Trelawney die? 

Then fifty thousand Cornish men will 
know the reason why.” 

Why should not Jesus do just the same? 

Shall John die? 

Then fifty thousand Galilseans 

Will know the reason why. 

That is what they expected. And Jesus went into the 
country, and talked to the little groups about the beauty 
of the lilies, and lost coins. “Why should he do it?” 
The revolutionists didn't want to hear about a lost coin 
that an ordinary woman lost, they didn’t want a homily 
on lilies. There was something more serious on the 
docket than that. And yet Jesus spent two years talk¬ 
ing to little groups. We know there was a reason for 
it. Jesus, that quiet young man, believed absolutely that 
the way of life was the way of Love. He had no faith 
in revolution, he had no faith in violence. His Kingdom 
was not a kingdom of this world, else his many soldiers— 
the angels of God—would fight. His Kingdom was dif¬ 
ferent. He wanted to win men by Love. And not one 

i 

in Palestine understood it. They were absolutely im¬ 
patient. 

The two years passed, and then he went up to Jeru- 




Drawing by Miles Hanson 

FIRST CHURCH IN ROXBURY 














































































THE GREAT OFFENSIVE 


17 


salem. And those who expected great things said to 
themselves, “Now, now, something is going to happen. 
Now we shall see the Messiah treading down his enemies 
under his feet.” He stopped at Jericho and the first 
thing he did was to talk to a taxgatherer, and to make the 
astounding statement that a grafter for the City of Rome 
was a son of Abraham, the worst—tactically—move¬ 
ment that he could have made. It was a queer begin¬ 
ning, to talk about a taxgatherer being a son of Abraham. 
“John would never have talked like that,” I can imagine 
some saying. 

Then the next thing he did was to talk to a fallen 
woman, and to say, “This thing that she has done shall 
be told all over the world.” What nonsense! What 
nonsense! When a kingdom was to be won, to talk 
about a coin, or a fallen woman. 

Then he went on toward Jerusalem, and at last he did 
something that was reasonable. All the old prophecies 
had told about the King riding into Jerusalem on an ass, 
and now the scene is staged just to fit the old prophecies, 
and he rides into Jerusalem just as the old prophets 
had said. Now he is doing something sensible. 
And then, directly, he empties the Temple, scourges those 
who are in the Temple. Again, a very wise thing to do. 
Now we are on the beginning of great deeds! And he 
stands at the gate of the Temple and says, “Do you see 
that old woman? Her penny is greater than anything 
that is given.” A poor widow! A queer- thing to say. 
They didn’t want to hear about widows’ pennies. 

And worse than that. He goes out of the city, and 


i8 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


looks at the stars at night, and sits under the trees dream¬ 
ing. I can imagine that he lost heart. He had been 
trying two years and a half to show that the way of life 
was the way of quiet Love. Nobody understood him. 
And I can imagine him—how he had almost made up 
his mind to go away. 

Just at that moment some Greeks came by and asked 
him to come and teach them. What a splendid oppor¬ 
tunity! Palestine would not listen to him, perhaps the 
Greek-speaking people would. Why should he not go 
away? And then I think there came into that mind 
something like this: “I have been trying all my life 
to teach folk that the way to win is to love. I will make 
one more effort. It will cost me my life, I know it, 
but I will make one more effort. I will go back into 
the Capital and when they treat me the worst I will 
show them I love them the most. I will give them a 
supreme example of overwhelming Love. I will make 
the last mortal effort to see if my ways shall not win. 
I will make one more Great Offensive, the greatest of 
my life. I will face the crowd. I will face all who are 
disappointed in me, and I will show them again that the 
one way to win is to love.” 

And you know what happened. It did cost him his 
life. And when he was dying, he said, “Father, forgive 
them; they do not know what they are doing.” And 
he passed out, a martyr to Love, a martyr to quiet 
service. And he passed out a dead failure, it seemed— 
not one man who understood him, not a single one who 
stayed true to the end. He set out to win the world 


THE GREAT OFFENSIVE 


19 

to a loving service, and on Good Friday it seemed as 
if he had failed. 

Then something happened. Something happened, but 
nobody knows what. Neither the orthodox nor the 
heterodox students can tell us what happened actually. 
But something happened. And in three days the dis¬ 
ciples pulled themselves together, and Christianity, as 
it were, began. 

Unfortunately, friends, unfortunately, even Christian¬ 
ity as a Romanized faith, has never quite grasped the 
meaning of Jesus. The Messiah, who was preached by 
the early Church, was not the Jesus who lived in Galilee. 
And when I hear men talking, to-day, about a Second 
Coming, when the great Leader shall deluge the world 
with blood, I cannot help but think we haven’t learned 
what Jesus meant to teach. Sometimes, even, Jesus 
seemed to forget it, but generally he was true to himself. 
The ways of the Spirit are not the ways of spilling blood. 
They are the ways of giving blood. The ways of the 
Spirit are not the noisy ways of a worldly triumph. 
They are the ways of lowly, unnoticed, loving service. 

Of course, with the Easter, and the renewal of a faith 
in the Messiah, there came the great world-wide teaching 
that we call the teaching of Jesus. The ways of Love 
failed, apparently. But they won wonderfully. Not 
one of the admirers of Jesus stands near him. No deeds 
of the realm of the West come near those of Jesus, 
and, to-day, the finest jewels in his crown are those jewels 
of gentle service, of loving helpfulness, and of the quiet 
winning of souls to himself. 


20 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


Easter tells me that finally Love wins. Apparently 
it 'loses. Finally it wins. I wonder if we believe that. 
I don’t think we do. 

I cannot help but think if Jesus, or a teacher like him— 
I don’t like to say if he came back, but, say, a teacher 
like him: supposing we had a teacher like him, to-day, 
who taught just what he taught, who did just what he 
did, do you think we should follow him? I doubt if one 
in a thousand would follow him. No. I doubt if one 
in a million would believe him wise. It seems so impos¬ 
sible. The ways of force seem the right ways to gain 
one’s end, and the way of quiet Love and even unobtru¬ 
sive ways seem so utterly useless. 

I have felt it scores of times. You have. Why don’t 
we do something? Why didn’t Jesus do something? 
Because he believed that the way of life was the way of 
the Spirit. Friends, I cannot help but feel that his way 
is true. The way to win is at least to love, the way to 
gain the whole world is to serve. “If any man,” said 
Jesus, “would be my disciple, let him take up his cross,” 
and Peter, the best man of the whole of them, said, 
“That is not right.” You remember he rebuked Jesus, 
and the answer of Jesus was, “Thou savorest—thou 
understandest—not the things of the Spirit, thou know- 
est the ways of men.” 

Friends, I call you to the ways of the Spirit. I want 
to see, and you want to see, the world made beautiful. 
I want to see, as you want to see, evil lessened, lawbreak¬ 
ing decreased, and the forces of darkness scattered. 


THE GREAT OFFENSIVE 


21 


We all want that. There is one way to do it effectu¬ 
ally, and only one way—the effectual way is the way of 
the Spirit. I call you to take that way. Will you? 
Will you? 

Forget altogether the ways of might, the ways of 
hatred, and the ways of force. Force is no remedy, we 
know it. Try the Jesus way. “I must,” said the Sav¬ 
iour, “I must go to Jerusalem, because I must show 
them that the only way to win is to love.” 

Will you take that stand—I must serve, I must help, 
for the only way is the way of Love. I call you, 
friends, to the greatest of lives, I call you to Love, to 
kindliness, to gentleness, and by and by there will be a 
wonderful Easter. The little deeds of Love will fall 
seemingly uselessly, just as the leaves of last autumn 
fell. Just as the hidden flowers fight the cold winter 
in the snow, all the good deeds of life will be for¬ 
gotten, just as the deeds of Jesus were forgotten, but 
by and by there will come a wondrous resurrection 
and the life of the Spirit will be supreme, and in our 
cities nothing shall walk that is found abominable, or 
that worketh lies, and the Eternal Spirit will be King. 

I call you, friends. Will you come? Will you give 
yourselves to the way of the Spirit? 

Let us pray. 

We thank Thee, Father, for Thy wondrous gifts. We 
bow in humility before Thy wondrous might. Help us, frail 
workers of Thine, children of Thine, ever to remember our 
heritage, help us ever to remember our glorious possessions. 


22 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


We are Thine, the world—the wondrous palace—is Thine. 
Help us as we walk through this life to realize this great joy, 
and to be worthy of that which is placed within us and 
around us. Amen. 


THE HOME LIFE OF JESUS 


After a period of silent prayer we will join together 
in prayer. 

We thank Thee, Heavenly Father, for this day when our 
work is put on one side, when we can leave the turmoil 
and the rush of the city, and when together or separate 
we can think of higher things and contemplate the better 
life. 

Be with us all throughout this day. May each hour of the 
day be* pregnant with blessing. In God’s House may we 
learn of God. In our own homes may God be blessed. And 
in our conversations with our friends may we help and be 
helped towards wiser thinking and better living. 

Be with us in the books we read, in the thoughts that we 
think, and in the plans that we make. May the day thus be 
really a Holy Day. May it shape our life, and where we 
have been foolish, where we have sinned, may we learn 
better, and be back home again to-day in the soul’s home with 
God. 

May this blessing of Divine help be the lot of all men and 
women this day. Wherever men are met in worship, in 
every church, in every form of faith and belief in whatso¬ 
ever creed, wherever men and women are seeking God, may 
they see Him. May God be revealed to all earnest souls. 
And where men and women may be careless to-day, where 
the day may be used unwisely, still somehow may there be 
whispers heard of better things and may this day even with 
such be God’s day, and help so to make us all God’s men 
and women. 

Be in every city in this land, and with all, of all nation¬ 
alities. Where some are thinking of their homes across 

23 


24 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


the sea, bless them; and where some, perhaps, are disconso¬ 
late in their new surroundings, may the day be a help to 
them; and where, perhaps, some are dissatisfied and plan¬ 
ning various things, may this day somehow restrain and 
guide them. May our cosmopolitan cities everywhere find 
some help from this day, and may our smaller towns and 
villages find and feel Thy presence. 

Throughout the whole of this land may men and women 
touch the hem of the Divine Garment and be made whole. 

And we pray for the nations across the sea. Be with 
them in their unrest. Be with them as they are suffering 
from the after effects of the war. As they are preaching 
revenge and perhaps hatred, be with them, and perhaps, in 
some way, may this Divine day teach Divine lessons and 
roll the world a little nearer the world that we should like to 
see. 

Again we pray for Thy blessing on ourselves. Grant 
that every one of us may grow as we are here in gracious¬ 
ness and in the knowledge of our Master. Amen. 

In the passage of Scripture that I read in the Gospel 
according to St. Mark, chapter vi, there is this sentence, 
or this question: “Is not this the carpenter?” 

I want to speak, this morning, on something about 
which I know very little. I was going to say, I know 
nothing. It seems almost foolish to try to speak on that 
of which I know nothing, but probably you are thinking 
in your own minds that other speakers have done that 
before me. 

I want to speak of the years of the life of Jesus, of 
which we do know practically nothing. Jesus probably 
died when he was about thirty-three. All we have any 
record of is the last two years or two years and a half, 
and even that record is very short. If you pick up St. 


25 


THE HOME LIFE OF JESUS 

Mark’s Gospel, you can read it in half an hour. So all 
that we do know of Jesus are those two and a half years, 
whose record can be read in half an hour. Of the thirty 
and one-half years before that we know practically noth¬ 
ing for certain. 

What was taking place during those thirty years? 
What was he doing? Where was he learning? What 
was he thinking, during those thirty years ? 

I am inclined to think that those thirty years are more 
important than the two years and a half of which we 
know something, for those thirty years were the years of 
preparation. We are apt to think that the years which 
we know about are the important years in anybody’s life, 
but the years that we don’t know anything about are 
equally important. We shall all remember, and probably 
histories will be written, without number, of the four 
years of the War, but the years before the War were the 
years that really brought it on. The years that we didn’t 
take much notice of, and the thoughts that we didn’t think 
much about, were the cause of the War. The quiet years 
are the years that do the work. The well-known years 
are simply the years when the result is shown. 

So it is with Jesus. For two years and a half he lived 
a public life. For thirty and a half years we don’t know 
anything, but those thirty and a half years made those 
two and a half years: they were the years of preparation, 
and they were the foundation on which the later life was 
built. 

I want, this morning, then, to try to see if we cannot 


26 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


find out what Jesus was doing during those thirty years. 
Of course, we all know the life in a village, in a little, 
scattered, untidy village, out of the way of the rush of 
life. You know that a life in a village is like the life he 
lived thirty years. 

As regards his home where he lived, it was a square or 
oblong one-story house. Have you noticed, in the whole 
of the Gospels there is only one house mentioned that was 
two-story? Jesus, evidently, didn’t mingle with houses 
of that kind. He has told us of only one house where 
there was an upper story. That was the house in which 
he had the Last Supper. 

He lived, then, in a one-story, oblong house. It was 
very likely mud. For we find in the illustrations—all I 
am getting at now is the illustration that he gives in those 
two and a half years of public life—we find in one of 
those illustrations that they took off the roof of the house 
and let a man down into the house. The houses were 
square or oblong. To make the roof they put large 
branches of wood across, and then smaller branches on top 
of that, and then mud on the top of that. 

My books are many of them marked to-day by the rain 
that came through mud like that. It was not absolutely 
waterproof. It was about as waterproof as the bricks 
that we buy to-day. 

It was a very simple thing to take off that mud and to 
take up one or two of the branches, and the roof would 
be off that part of the house. 

It was, therefore, a cheaply built house that Jesus lived 
in. 


27 


THE HOME LIFE OF JESUS 

Then we gather from the further illustrations that it 
was a small one, for when a man—there is this illustra¬ 
tion—when a man knocked at the door, like asking for 
bread, the man inside could shout out from his bed and 
ask the man without what he wanted. It was, therefore, 
a little house, or they could not shout out like that from 
within the house. Then also, again, it was small, because 
we are told Jesus gives us this illustration, if you light 
a taper—their candles, of course, were simply saucers 
with a bit of wick in the centre—if you light this wick, 
it gives light to the whole house. It was a very poor 
light. As you know, a candle light is. But the house 
was so little that even the candle light showed all over the 
house. 

Then, again, he was a widow’s son. We find that 
question asked, “Is not this the son of Mary?” And it 
is asked in rather a scornful way. A widow’s son was 
not considered much even in a village. Jesus was simply 
a widow’s son, and he was the oldest boy in a family, 
probably, of seven. Now you know what that means— 
the oldest boy of a family of seven, with no father. 
That boy has got to do something to keep the house to¬ 
gether. So he was evidently pretty hard-working, and 
he knew very well what poverty meant. For we find this 
illustration, that when his mother—we suppose his 
mother, or some woman near—lost ten cents (we should 
not think much about that, if we lost ten cents, we should 
probably not bother looking for it)—it was so much that 
she went and told the neighbors about it, and they were 
all anxious, and when she found it again there was a 


28 THE HILLS OF GOD 

regular jollification. Evidently, Jesus knew what pov¬ 
erty was. 

And then as we read further on we find, I am afraid, 
a rather painful implication. We are obliged to come to 
the conclusion that the man was not always happy. His 
mother didn’t understand him. And you know what it 
means when the boy and his mother do not understand 
each other. They both may be in the right, and yet there 
is an awkward feeling. Evidently, the mother of Jesus 
didn’t understand him. 

I often feel a little amused—it is one of the ironies of 
life—that the Church, the Roman Catholic Church, has 
made Mary have such an important position in their 
worship. The reason, of course, is theological. The 
Church made Jesus a singularly fine person, and made 
him, as it were, a long way off from you and me. And 
so the world wanted somebody nearer, and they said, 
“Make the mother of Jesus nearer.” But the mother of 
Jesus is a very different person from the one the Roman 
Catholic Church pictures. She didn’t understand her 
son, and went even so far as to say—you remember— 
that he was out of his mind. And when, one day, he was 
speaking in a crowd, she even went into the crowd and 
tried to stop him. A very awkward position both for the 
young man and the mother. And the brothers even went 
with her and tried to stop the young man from speaking. 
And I wonder if we find an echo of that in the words of 
Jesus later. Somebody said to him, “Your mother is 
outside there.” And he said, “Who is my mother? He 
that doeth the will of my Father is my mother and my 


29 


THE HOME LIFE OF JESUS 

sister.” I wonder if there was not a little bitterness in 
that. And then he said, a little later, “He that hateth not 
his mother is not worthy of me.” Was there not a little 
echo there of the difference of opinion in that little 
home, when Jesus felt he must do what his mother dis¬ 
tinctly disliked? 

Such were the early years of Jesus, in a little home, 
bearing misunderstanding, and working pretty hard, for I 
dare say his hard work very often cut his hands, and 
lamed him, but he had to go on. And the Scripture 
later says that he learned by the things he suffered. He 
probably learned how to cut wood without cutting him¬ 
self. He learned by cutting himself, he learned by hurt¬ 
ing himself, he learned by the things he suffered. As 
we all do. 

Such, then, was the early life. What can we learn 
from it? It is wonderful that a life lived like that has 
done such things. There was not a single day of college 
life. There probably was not a single day of schooling. 
He probably had no books at all. I wonder where he 
learned what he knew. The only guess that I can make 
at it is this. When he had worked pretty hard all day, 
perhaps when he had had a little disagreement with his 
mother, when it became evening, I think he probably 
quietly went out of the little village on to the mountains 
near, and there sat down and thought. That is the 
schooling that he got, sitting on the mountains alone 
thinking. 

If you and I would do that more, sit and think in 
quietude more, I think we should be better men and 


3° 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


women. The best man is the man who has thought most, 
generally. And Jesus learned what he knew, very 
largely, by thinking, by observing the things around him. 
You notice that whenever he preached afterwards, when¬ 
ever he preached at all, he always used the simplest illus¬ 
trations, just the things he had seen. He knew about the 
village, he knew about the flowers, he knew about the si¬ 
lences, and when he preached he just simply used those 
simple things, and yet he preached, shall I say as no man 
in the world has ever preached, before or since? It is a 
marvellous thing that one in any such surroundings 
should so shape the world. 

Now what can we learn from it? For that is why I 
have taken the subject. What can we learn from this 
carpenter? “Is not this the carpenter?” Now what can 
the carpenter teach us ? 

I am not going to say a word about his theological 
position. The world has quarreled about that ever since 
Jesus lived, and when all the quarreling is over we shall 
not know much about it. God’s ways are bigger than 
our minds and we can never be sure that we can gain any 
theory of Jesus the Divine. The world is seventy million 
years old at least, and the world is a baby compared with 
other worlds. What can we know about it? 

Don’t let’s quarrel about the theological position of 
Jesus, for we are not big enough to know it. But we can 
look at Jesus and see what he is and then try to imitate 
him. That is a simple matter. 

Now let us see some of the things that he did during 
his life. 


3i 


THE HOME LIFE OF JESUS 

The first thing that I always admire about him, and the 
thing that I try to imitate in him mostly, is his thought 
about God. You know he always called God “Father.” 
You know, when he was only twelve years old, it is said 
that he went to Jerusalem, and, boylike, got away from 
his parents, and they found him talking in the Temple 
with the ministers who were there. And when the 
mother called him he said, “Well, I must be about my 
Father’s business.” And he kept that up all his life. 
His “Father,” when he thought about God. You see he 
had not any earthly father. Joseph had died. And so 
Jesus thought of another Father in place of the father 
who had gone before. 

All the way through his life we have that thought. 
When he was poor—when he was wondering what 
clothes to put on, how he could buy a simple suit—you 
remember, he said to the friends around, “God clothes the 
lilies, how much more shall He clothe you!” 

And then when he saw his friends passing out he said, 
“In my Father’s house are many mansions.” 

From beginning to end Jesus thought of the Great 
Power Around, as like a Father. I try to copy that. 
Friends, I don’t know much, and you don’t know much, 
about God, but from what we do know let us think of 
Him as a Father caring for us, guiding us, and in His 
great Mansion having many rooms where we pass from 
one to another. 

Then, in the second place, I always think of Jesus 
working quietly at home. As I have said, he was the 
oldest boy. There was a family of six to bring up, and 


32 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


he stayed at home until he had brought them up, although 
they disliked him, as I have said, in many ways. They 
didn’t understand him. He stayed at home at the joiner’s 
bench until his brothers were wage earners. He stayed 
at home until his mother was out of her financial diffi¬ 
culty, because the other boys began to earn. And all the 
time he knew he was a genius, for a genius knows it, he 
cannot help it. All the time he was wanting to help and 
to serve and probably to preach. Probably, for years, 
he wanted to do something to help his country. But he 
did nothing. He stayed at home. Home was first. I 
like that about him. 

One thing that I have never liked of American life— 
and the same thing now unfortunately prevails in English 
life—is the fact that home is becoming less important. 
I don’t think that that old song, “Be it ever so humble, 
there’s no place like home,” I don’t think that that would 
be written to-day. If the author of that had not written 
it when he did, I don’t think it would be written to-day. 
Because we don’t feel like that. Automobiles take people 
out of their homes, the motion picture shows take others 
out of their homes, and home is simply a third place, 
where we sleep. Is it not so? Our architecture helps 
towards it. I don’t know, I have never lived there, but 
I cannot imagine people speaking of love in a flat. 

It is not like the old home. My picture of a home, 
that I always hold in the background of my mind, is a 
separate house. It may be little, as Jesus’ was. I 
lived six years in a house just like the house that Jesus 
lived in, just as simple, without any floors in it, and with- 


33 


THE HOME LIFE OF JESUS 

out any doorways in it when we went there. But it was 
a home. I picture a home a place, at any rate, with a 
spare room in it where the boys can play about, making 
noise, and making a mess without making any trouble. 
Then with a back yard, or a garden, where the father and 
the mother have a little place to themselves. 

Friends, I am sure of this, without any exception, we 
have got to get back to making more of the home. If we 
lessen our home attractions, which we are doing in every 
city in the world—I am not simply mentioning Boston; 
every city in the world is making home less and less im¬ 
portant—we lose one incentive to life. And home is the 
place where a nation is built. Home is the place where a 
man is made, and he will never be made anywhere else 
equally successfully. We may try it, but we shall fail 
eventually. 

Jesus, the joiner, the carpenter, made a home for 
twenty-nine years, and I think that had something to do 
with his two and a half years of public life. 

Then, again, Jesus did something else that I cannot 
help but want to copy. He determined to quietly do his 
work at hand. As I have said, he was in a little valley, 
a little detached valley, away from the main roads. But 
about two miles outside the village there was one of the 
main roads, that went from Jerusalem to Galilee. Gali¬ 
lee was the busy, inhabited portion of Palestine. It was 
the New England of America. It was the place that was 
active and go-ahead. And this road went from Jerusa¬ 
lem to Galilee. And I have no doubt that Jesus very 
often went on to that main road. When he did, he 



THE HILLS OF GOD 


34 

would see a very cosmopolitan life. He would see the 
Roman soldiers marching with imperial tread. And I 
dare say he would wish that they were back in Rome, 
for you don’t like to see a foreign army in your own 
country. Then, again, he would see the Pharisees—the 
priests—and the Sadducees walking on that road. Then 
he would see the Egyptians with their camels and their 
merchandise, crossing from Egypt to Damascus. Then 
he would see Arabs going the other way. Then 
every now and then he would see a zealot, as he was 
called, a man who was determined to free his country, 
probably he would be talking to himself as he passed 
along, and people would whisper and say, ‘There goes a 
patriot who is going to sometime help to free our 
country.” 

He would see a varied life, hear varied discussions, 
hear varied calls, and yet he decided that if Palestine was 
to be helped, it was not to be by the noisy way, it was to 
be by the quiet way of service. And he went home to 
live twenty-nine years quietly, while every one else was 
agitated about Palestine. I cannot help but think that 
Jesus, again, was extremely right. If we wish to make a 
perfect Boston—and we do wish that—I know the claims 
outside have importance. I know that every person 
ought to understand the various attempts at self- 
government, every person ought to be alive as to what is 
passing. But the way to perfection lies in your heart 
and mine. Boston, New England, old England, and dev¬ 
astated Europe will be perfect when the inhabitants are 
perfect. And not before. 



35 


THE HOME LIFE OF JESUS 

Jesus ever taught that, in his quiet way, at home, and 
he was so successful in what he did that there is not a 
man in the Western world to-day who does not admire 
Jesus. He is the one figure that has helped to shape the 
world by his quietude. 

Friends, I ask you to-day, I appeal to you to-day. We 
want to make ourselves noble men and women. We 
want to make a Roxbury that is noble. The one way 
to do it is to live as we have seen that Jesus lived, in 
our own hearts love the good, in our own lives serve the 
good, and day by day go about doing good. 

We call him Master, and you know what he said, “Not 
every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, but he that 
doeth the will of my Father”—meaning, not every one 
that can say things theologically—“shall enter into the 
Kingdom, but he that doeth the will of my Father in 
Heaven.” 

Are you doing that will? None of us are doing it 
perfectly. We are trying, we are failing, but let us go 
on trying. 

May this service this morning help us all to go back 
home and try to do the will of our Father in Heaven. 
And may we go back home to turn the pages of our own 
Book and read about the Carpenter and how he lived, 
uod help us so to do. 

Let us pray. 

Heavenly Father, help us in the daily life we have 
to live, help us to do the will of our Father, as far as we can. 
Help us, as far as we can, to be really men and women serv¬ 
ing God and helping man. Amen. 


CAN WE STILL FOLLOW JESUS? 


Let us join in silent prayer. 

Our Father, we seek Thy guidance this day. We are oft 
perplexed and disturbed, hearing differing voices speak 
in our lives. The higher and the lower contend in us, the 
material and the immaterial oppose themselves in our hearts. 
At one time we walk with one set of forces, and our eyes 
longingly look toward another fold and other companions. 
We often know not what to do or how to do. To-day, we 
would that the higher be emphasized and that the lower be 
minimized, we would that the better shall seem more attrac¬ 
tive, the higher more alluring, and the ways of Jesus more 
applicable. Help us as we worship, so that we may become 
more and more enthralled in Spirit and more free from the 
ways of the material. 

And this blessing we also ask for all our neighbors and 
fellow citizens and companion worshippers. 

May men to-day rise out of the valley towards the heights, 
may men to-day leave behind the temporal and think of the 
Eternal. May men and women everywhere to-day walk the 
streets of the Holy City and leave behind the lower ways 
that sometimes appeal. 

May the day be a Sabbath to all our friends and neigh¬ 
bors and fellow-worshippers, and may the Holy Spirit teach 
holy ways. 

And we pray likewise for men and women in a collec¬ 
tive sense. Be with the nations. It seems harder to be 
Christlike collectively than it is to be so individually. It 
seems sometimes that we have a double morality, one for 
the home and one for the nation. Help the nations to-day, 
that they may sit at the feet of the Father, and may some 

36 


CAN WE STILL FOLLOW JESUS? 37 

lessons be learned, some ways be loved, that have hitherto 
been neglected. May men to-day learn that the Father is 
waiting to help, and that only as nations lean on Him are 
nations great and powerful. 

Help all who are disturbed, help all who are disquieted, 
and around the world for a time may the peace of God, 
which passeth all understanding, abide with men. Amen. 

Not long ago I received a parcel of books from across 
the water, all of them concerned with Jesus, one of them 
by a Professor, entitled, “Can we still follow Jesus?’’ 

There is always an absorbing interest in the life of 
Jesus. You will have seen mentioned that new life pub¬ 
lished by the Italian Papini and you will have noticed 
what a tremendous sale it is having on both sides of the 
Atlantic. The questioning concerning Jesus, his person¬ 
ality, his words and his ways, has an attraction that the 
words and ways of no other man have. When we read 
his life it has an effect that no other life has. But when 
we leave aside this attractive life there conies into our 
hearts a series of questions. We acknowledge the 
beauty, we feel the charm, we long to be obedient to the 
allurement, but can we? As that Professor says, “Can 
we follow Jesus? Can we do as he advises? Can we 
feel as he suggests?” 

Of course, before we can give an answer, it is always 
well to see the man himself. We cannot too often try 
to picture what Jesus himself was like. Let me again, 
therefore, recall to you the probable appearance and life 
of the Master. 

He lived, most likely, for twenty-five or twenty-six 
years in a two-room house; and it is possible it may 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


38 

have been only one room. A one-room house, with the 
kitchen and joiner or carpenter’s shop and storehouse all 
combined. Perhaps one room was set aside for the 
family uses. But I should not be surprised if all were 
in one room. There probably would be no chairs. I am 
not sure there would be a table. There would be a very 
simple cooking arrangement. And when sleeping time 
came all that would be done would be that the rugs were 
spread on the floor. A simplicity that you and I cannot 
imagine, or, at least, cannot realize. He never, probably, 
had above two or three days’ supply of work or food 
ahead. He was the food-winner for a little family, the 
father having died. All his friends were equally simple, 
equally poor, quite dependent on the daily bread. If one 
were sick, all the neighbors lent a hand. If any one 
grew old, the neighbors or the relatives were very glad 
to take the old mother or father into the house. With 
this simple family arrangement the members of the 
family could be very elastic. I have seen in a Mexican 
adobe house as many as twenty living together, and prob¬ 
ably the Mexicans lived exactly as Jesus lived. 

Jesus himself was a genius in spiritual things. He 
thought and wondered and questioned as probably no 
man has done before or since, and he had a peculiar 
interest in the deeper things of life. He was extremely 
fond of being alone. There was no joy to him like leav¬ 
ing every one else and being alone. And I can imagine 
when he was alone he plucked the wayside flowers and 
looked at them and loved them. 

Then, by and by, there came a change in his life 


CAN WE STILL FOLLOW JESUS? 39 

and he began to teach. Now, what would his teaching 
naturally consist of? He had none of the learning that 
we call learning. He had none of what we call expe¬ 
rience. He had not the slightest idea of any present-day 
class. I don’t think he had ever seen a city with above 
twenty or thirty thousand people in it. He had never 
seen anything like our manufacturing centres. He had 
very little idea of many nationalities. He had lived a 
simple village life and he had thought alone over the 
deep problems of the soul and its Maker. You can thus 
see that when he began to speak he would have little to 
say of a civilization such as we know, because he had no 
idea of it. 

And so his teaching divides itself into two classes, 
one conditioned on circumstances, and the other uncon¬ 
ditioned, because of its spiritual nature. Spiritual teach¬ 
ing is never conditioned, and a sermon that was preached 
say in 1800 on spiritual things would be a good sermon 
to-day, and a good sermon on spiritual things spoken to¬ 
day will be a good one a hundred years hence. Spiritual 
things do not change. 

And so the teaching of Jesus had two aspects, one 
concerned with what he knew as regards temporal things 
and conditioned by that view, the other distinctly spiritual 
and not conditioned at all. And I want to speak of those 
two aspects. 

First, then, his teaching which was conditioned, shaped 
by his temporal surroundings. Let me mention a few. 
I read them purposely in the lesson. 

“When any man asketh of thee, give, and hope for 


40 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


nothing again.” Can we do that? The very essence of 
our charitable teaching to-day is that we shall not give pro¬ 
miscuously. Talk to any charitable worker to-day and 
the first thing that he would say would be, “Never give 
anything at the door, never give anything without due 
inquiry, promiscuous giving is evil.” When I was on 
the farm we used to have common stock in all our tools. 
If I wanted a plow of a size I didn’t possess, I would go 
to my neighbor and get one. If he wanted anything I 
had, he would come and get mine. We would lend pro¬ 
miscuously, and think nothing about it. I am not quite 
so sure I would lend in Boston. I should want to know 
about the man who was borrowing. I should make a 
few inquiries before I said, “Take what you want.” It 
is very different in a village than in a city. And so you 
see, to begin with, a point-blank rejection of some teach¬ 
ings of Jesus. We say, “Don’t give without inquiry, 
and if you lend, be cautious.” 

Then, again, Jesus said, “Take no thought of to¬ 
morrow.” That was quite, as I said, possible in those 
days. If any became old or sick, there was always a 
home ready, waiting. Jesus himself never, probably, 
had, as I have said, more than two or three days’ supply 
ahead. But he was not worried. He knew, if anything 
happened, he would be provided for by his little com¬ 
munity. There was no need to take any thought. Is 
that so to-day? I should say, without any hesitation, 
that every young man who gets married ought to in¬ 
sure himself. I should say he would make a mistake 
if he didn’t so do. It is the duty of every married 


CAN WE STILL FOLLOW JESUS? 41 

person to provide for the wife in case of emergency— 
and the children. Then I should say to every one, “You 
ought never to live up to your income; you always ought 
to live below, whether it be large or small. You always 
ought to live at a little less rate than your income, so 
that if sickness come, you will have something ready.” 
Now, that is quite contrary to what Jesus said. I don’t 
follow Jesus, therefore, in that respect. I do take 
thought, and I think every one ought to take thought for 
to-morrow. No person has a right to live right up to 
his income. 

Then Jesus said, “Resist not him that is evil.” Now, 
put that in a village, and you see what it means. If any 
man is quarrelsome in a village, everybody knows it and 
everybody leaves him on one side. Nobody that is so 
senseless as to be always quarreling has any friend in 
a village. There is nothing gained at all by being quarrel¬ 
some, there is nothing gained at all by being touchy. 
And so if any one does you any hurt, well—take it quietly, 
talk it over, appeal to your neighbors and things will be 
right. “Resist not him that is evil.” Be quiet about it 
and sensible, don’t be too touchy. That is all right in 
that Eastern life. Now, supposing we take those words 
out and put them down to-day. How do they sound to¬ 
day? Quite different. We have, perhaps, a combina¬ 
tion of masters; or we have, perhaps, a combination of 
workmen who seek, one or the other, complete personal 
advantage. And perhaps between the combinations there 
is absolutely no thought at all as regards the public, the 
public is simply not considered. Have we to say noth- 


42 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


ing? Is there not an opportunity for the general public 
amidst all our complications to-day? It is a different 
question altogether, and I should resist evil, and as heartily 
as I possibly could. Again differing from the direct 
teaching of the Master. 

Now I come to the most difficult question. Un¬ 
doubtedly, Jesus was a pacifist, as we call them to-day. 
I have not the slightest doubt of that in my own mind. 
Undoubtedly, in my own mind, he was just what we 
should call to-day an extreme pacifist. Do I follow him ? 
Can I follow him? Wars are the result of previous 
years of preparation. I do not mean warlike preparation 
alone. Wars are the result of previous attitudes of mind, 
and when those attitudes of mind have developed to a cer¬ 
tain degree, what then? If' one nation be warlike and 
prepares for forty years for a certain position and then 
presumes on this preparation, what then? If politicians 
make secret treaties, as they do in all countries—we on 
this side are not clean in that respect—and then those 
secret treaties by and by clash, what then? We all agree 
that war is hateful, that there is nothing so hateful and 
destructive and useless, but there are times as the result of 
previous policies when we ask straight out, “Shall I de¬ 
fend my country, or shall I not?” And I am not going 
to lay down a universal rule. All I am going to say is 
what I said straight out in El Paso when war broke out 
in 1914. I said what I repeat to-day, “I believe that 
Jesus taught under no circumstances should there be war, 
but if I were in England to-day, I would fight, and point- 
blank disregard what Jesus said.” I have never yet seen 


CAN WE STILL FOLLOW JESUS? 43 

that I was wrong in making that statement. What we 
have to do, of course, is to watch the previous policies 
and take what steps we can with nations that will uphold 
such policies, that will move toward that position when 
war seems an absurd necessity, but we cannot yet take it. 
We cannot yet follow Jesus always as regards war. 

Then there comes another question. Jesus was con¬ 
ditioned, as I have said, by his thinking and the think¬ 
ing of the people around him. At times he contradicted 
himself. At certain times he certainly seemed to be¬ 
lieve in his own coming-back immediately. There is no 
use in denying it. He told his disciples that before they 
went through Palestine the Second Coming would be 
realized. And at times he certainly told them that noth¬ 
ing was worth anything—what was the good, because 
the Kingdom of Heaven was coming. But, then, at other 
times he took a different position: the growth of the 
Kingdom was like the growth of the mustard seed; it was 
like leaven working in the meal. It was a slow growth, 
no one could tell when it was coming, or how it was 
growing. He contradicted himself. We do not accept 
his teaching, at all, of the second coming. We accept 
his teaching, heartily, as regards the slow growth of the 
Kingdom. 

Thus, wherever he was conditioned by his village life 
and surroundings, we are at liberty to please ourselves as 
regards the applicability of his words. 

We all are ready to accept some texts, and we are all 
equally ready to reject texts that do not suit us. We 
all do it and we might as well acknowledge it. We can- 


44 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


not follow him in many of his teachings—the teaching 
that was conditioned by his life. 

But now I want to pass over that and enter into his 
great sphere. As I said, his second type of teaching was 
concerned with the spiritual, and here we enter on to a 
different ground altogether. Here we enter into a Holy 
of Holies. Here we listen to the teaching of the greatest 
teacher the world has ever seen and the grandest seer that 
the world has ever known. Let us, then, enter into his 
spiritual teaching. 

First of all, he taught the immense supremacy of 
spiritual life. “Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven, and 
all else will be added.” We all know there is no excep¬ 
tion to it. We all know that we are more than simply 
material. We all feel that whatever happens outside of 
us, or whatever positions we gain, at least there is 
something else in life. We all know that we are part 
somehow of an invisible kingdom, that we are all some¬ 
how destined to a different end from what we see around. 
We all know that within us there is something infi¬ 
nitely more, infinitely greater, than the things we touch 
and handle. There is not a man to-day in Boston, good 
or bad, who does not know that, in his heart—at some 
time or other. I am here not simply as a man in this 
world, I am here as somehow part of an invisible king¬ 
dom. There is something in me of more value than all 
that I can touch. And Jesus stressed that as none other 
has done. Seek first the Kingdom, seek first the pearl 
of greatest price. What does it. matter if you gain the 
whole world and lose that something within ? And 


CAN WE STILL FOLLOW JESUS? 45 

whenever Jesus spoke he called that something within to 
a higher ground. It does not matter whether he spoke 
to a scholar like Nicodemus, or to a woman like Mary, 
or to a grafter like Zacchaeus. It does not matter to 
whom he spoke—something was called out: they felt 
themselves citizens of that Heavenly Kingdom. 

And then he stressed our high calling. “You and your 
Father are one, live with the Father.” 

Friends, I have said some things that we cannot be 
obedient unto. I am saying some things now that we 
cannot be disobedient unto. Where Jesus spoke spiritu¬ 
ally we have to be obedient or die. There is no choice. 
Either we must seek first the things of the Kingdom, or 
we lose ourselves. There we must be obedient to his 
spiritual invitation or we must die. 

Then, the second stress that Jesus laid was that self- 
seeking is self-losing. “He that seeketh his life shall 
lose it, he that loseth his life for the things of the King¬ 
dom shall find it.” Jesus always stressed, as you know, 
the something within. He had no patience with cere¬ 
monies. He had little place in his constitution for ritual. 
He cared not one jot for what other religious people did. 
What he knew was that what mattered was his own self 
and his Father, and that when he himself was lost in his 
Father all was well, so lost that he forgot all about him¬ 
self. And you remember—I have often mentioned it, 
for it is a favorite parable—you remember when he pic¬ 
tured the judgment. Those who were rewarded didn’t 
know why they were rewarded, they didn’t even know 
they had been good. And those punished didn’t even 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


46 

know they had been bad. It is the self within that 
counts. And when that self is so married to the noble 
that it doesn’t know what it is doing, then we are on 
the way to the life of Jesus. When I do things, and 
don’t know that I am doing them, because I am so lost in 
the Master, then I am his disciple. Directly we do things 
conscious of ourselves, we are on the low level. When¬ 
ever I preach a sermon and think of myself in doing it; 
if ever there flashes through my mind when I am speak¬ 
ing, “You are doing pretty well,” that sermon is doomed. 
Directly a speaker has in him a suggestion that he is do¬ 
ing well, he is lost. Directly a painter thinks of the fame 
that will come to him through the strokes which his 
genius can make, that painter is undone. Directly a 
writer, in writing a book, thinks of the fame that will 
come to him through that book, the writer is undone. 
When a work is done unconsciously, serving for the sake 
of service, we are forgetful of all that there is behind; 
writing the book for the good it will do; painting the 
picture for the lesson it will teach; doing for the sake of 
the service that will be rendered. 

He that seeketh himself, loseth himself. He that for- 
getteth all about himself, findeth life. Now, that is an 
eternal truth that must not be neglected. Can we follow 
Jesus? We must, or all is lost. The nation must 
follow him like that or be lost. Directly we as Americans 
follow the ways—I won’t say it. You will find the 
answer. 

Then, another great lesson that Jesus taught was, “Do 
not thine own, but thy Master’s will.” “Not thine own, 


CAN WE STILL FOLLOW JESUS? 47 

but my will be done.” This follows, of course, what 
I have said. We are all the audience chamber of con¬ 
tending voices. One set of voices always says, “Do thine 
own way. Shall I not do what I like with mine own?” 
Another set of voices says, “I am not mine own. I be¬ 
long to the great Father. The great universal Spirit is 
ever speaking and I must be obedient to that.” And 
so there comes this great test. Shall I do what I think 
best, or what I like? Or shall I do what the higher 
voices, that are sounding in me, advise me to do? I 
can well imagine that Jesus had just as much fighting on 
those lines as we have. When the last great conflict 
came, I can imagine that turmoil in his spirit. On the 
one hand, was hatred and death. On the other side, 
there was a glorious future for him, and if he had gone 
there, he would have been perfectly safe. Which should 
he do ? I am certain his own little nature would say, “Go 
back home.” I am equally certain the higher voice said 
to him, “Go and meet your fate. Thou hast taught cer¬ 
tain truths, go and live them out. And if thou diest, all 
right.” On the one hand was safety, on the other hand 
was death. The same differences appeal to you and me 
many a time. There are certain policies that are safe. 
There are certain policies that are fateful. There are 
certain ways in which we can make money, there are 
certain ways in which we are obliged to sacrifice it. And 
we stand at the parting of the ways. And Jesus said, 
“When the time comes, do not thine own, but thy Mas¬ 
ter’s will”—“Not my own, but Thy will be done.” Can 
we be obedient? We either must—we either must, or we 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


48 

are never the same again. There may come a time when 
again the life is in the balance, and I may say, “Well, 
everybody else does it; I will take the gain.” Nobody 
else knows anything about the conflict, nobody con¬ 
demns us. But our own heart shames us and we 
take a lower level ever after. We talk about fallen 
women. We are fallen men and women then. We have 
chosen the lower. We have done our own will and we 
have left the higher will neglected. 

Friends, I cannot—I cannot emphasize enough that 
when it comes to the spiritual teaching of Jesus, we must 
obey, there is no way out. When the higher voices call, 
we are compelled to answer, or to lose our souls. 

Will you listen to this teaching of the Master? 

God help us to be his disciples. God help us so that 
when the time of difficulty comes, we can say, “Not mine 
own, but Thy will be done.” 

Let us pray. 

Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for the teaching that we 
read in the life of our Master. Help us to follow him. 
Help us to be obedient to his higher lessons. Help us to 
walk on his side. And so as he himself desired, be at one 
with God and himself. Amen. 


THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS 

REFUSED 


Our Father, may we all be close to Thy side. May we 
feel Thy nearness, may we hear Thy words in our hearts, 
and may the hour we spend in Thy company be truly an 
hour of inspiration, of guidance. May we gain comfort 
and strength. And help us so that when we go home after 
our worship we may be stronger and better men and 
women. 

May the hour be truly solemn, sacred, holy, and so may 
our lives be altogether purified. Amen. 

In Psalm cxviii, which I read, there occurs an old 
Jewish proverb that was very often quoted. We have, 
perhaps, in later years given that proverb a new meaning. 
But then it was certainly a proverb representing an 
universal truth. It occurs in verse 22—“The stone which 
the builders refused is become the head stone of the 
corner.” 


“All are architects of Fate, 

Working in these walls of Time; 
Some with massive deeds and great, 
Some with ornaments of rhyme. 


“Nothing useless is, or low; 

Fach thing in its place is best; 
And what seems but idle show 
Strengthens and supports the rest. 

49 



50 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


“For the structure that we raise, 

Time is with materials filled; 

Our to-days and yesterdays 

Are the blocks with which we build.” 

Longfellow, in those words, expressed an universal 
truth. We are all builders. Every day we build, some¬ 
times wisely, sometimes nobly, sometimes ill, sometimes 
so badly that others have to pull down what we erected. 
We are all building day by day, but there is this dif¬ 
ference between us and most builders. We, like others, 
select and reject. We select certain experiences and say 
those shall go into our building. We reject other ex¬ 
periences and say they are useless. But somehow, 
whether we select or reject, our deeds mysteriously enter 
into our building. And sometimes, perhaps, after a few 
years of our work we stand back and survey what we 
have done. Something as an artist when he is paint¬ 
ing stands back to see his picture. So, sometimes, you 
and I in a moment or two of leisure stand back to see 
what we have builded. And then, unless I mistake, 
we all encounter a great surprise—the wall which we have 
raised, or the building in which we have assisted, con¬ 
tains material very different from what we expected. 
Somehow the stones which we selected and thought very, 
very suitable seem out of place and somehow the experi¬ 
ences which we disliked and rejected stand there, and 
stand out beautifully, being the head stone of the corner, 
or the corner stone of some great erection. Very often 
the proverb that I used is true—the stone which the build- 


THE STONE THE BUILDERS REFUSED 51 

ers rejected is the head stone of the corner. To-day I 
want to speak of that collectively and individually, for it 
is true in both ways. 

First, collectively. We are all trying, and men have 
always been trying, to build what we call civilization 
(I do not know, and you do not know, how many years 
men have lived), but they have never yet succeeded. No 
race of men, and no generation of men, has ever built a 
civilization that has lasted long. Perhaps we may say 
that a thousand years is about the time that a developed 
civilization can live. Perhaps the Egyptians are the only 
ones who have eclipsed that period. Somehow we build 
our civilization and it falls into ruin. There is no excep¬ 
tion. And some writers say—I will leave it with you to 
judge whether it be true or not—some writers say that 
our civilization is approaching its destined time, and that 
it is showing signs of crumbling. 

We erect our building with great pains and sorrow 
and travail, but somehow we have never yet built well 
enough to have the structure stand. 

Why is it ? 

It may be that as builders we select the wrong mate¬ 
rial. It may be that we are unwise in our choice of the 
material which shall really be used. Hitherto we have 
always selected about the same type of material. If you 
open up any history, you will find that the great names, 
or what we might call the corner stones of the histories, 
are generals, admirals, monarchs, kings or queens. So 
true is this that when we read a consecutive story of vari- 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


52 

ous kings and generals we practically read a history of a 
nation. We have said, So and So is the great Athenian, 
the great Roman; Pharaoh So and So is the great Egyp¬ 
tian warrior; So and So are the great men of such and 
such a century; and we have placed them right at the 
corner stone of the arch; and somehow the arch has be¬ 
gun to crumble, and, as I have said, in a thousand years 
it has fallen down. 

Have we made a mistake concerning the builder, or 
the material selected? 

I almost think that we are beginning to talk about se¬ 
lecting differently, for when I now go back to history I 
find there are strange reversals in judgment. For in¬ 
stance, the despised slave Epictetus is now seeming to 
be important, the rejected searcher Socrates is now loved, 
the persecuted scholar Bunyan is now respected, the 
scorned teacher Confucius is now remembered with won¬ 
der, the satirized dreamer Jesus stands highest of all. 
The materials that we once rejected are beginning now to 
stand out, and when the wise civilization comes there 
seem to be certain corner stones that will be used to build 
the nation’s life—the wise scholars and the humble serv¬ 
ants ; and when any nation or civilization is wise enough 
to say, “My strength lies there,” I think probably the 
thousand years of a civilization will be prolonged. 

And we make the same mistake in our private life. 
I know I have made that mistake in mine. I know that 
when I look back now I take very different measurements 
from what I did twenty years ago, and I suppose if 
I live another twenty years I shall again change my 
judgment. 


THE STONE THE BUILDERS REFUSED 53 

As we are in the busy part of life we consider the 
great things, say, the material successes that we have 
made, the fortunate investments that we made, perhaps 
the great speech that once we made, perhaps the fine 
home that once we builded, perhaps the faith that once 
carried our name with it. Those are the things that rise 
as we go along, those are the things that we say are mak¬ 
ing our life what it is, and other things we hate. We 
even say, Were it not for so and so, I should have been 
better still. If I had only been in a different position, I 
should have made a better record still. If only for such 
and such a year when I had my sickness, or if only for 
such and such a year when I met my sorrow—if it had 
not been for that, I should have done better still, but 
that spoiled my life. Don’t we all say that? I know 
I say it, if it had not been for such and such a mis¬ 
fortune, I should have done better still. And then when 
we stand back and look at our lives expecting that great 
thing to be the corner stone, we find a very different 
material there. 

Let me mention a few of the upsets in private life 
that somehow wonderfully speak on this topic. 

Fabre was a poor teacher, a public school teacher, and 
he made a discovery. He invented a certain dye, and it 
just seemed as though he was ready to walk into a for¬ 
tune. And at the very same time somebody else found 
a cheaper way of making the same dye; and all his 
promise of financial success floated away. So he turned 
to teaching. He said he would take a girls’ school, and 
he began splendidly, but he was too advanced for his 


54 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


work, and the authorities around about made him close 
his school: they didn’t want girls to be taught that way. 
So he was minus his fortune and minus his school. And 
the man was terribly bitter. If it had not been for that 
other discoverer, if it had not been for the prejudice of 
the people around him, he would have built splendidly. 
And, to-day, there is not a reader in the world that does 
not know of him. Those two experiences are the corner 
stone of the arch of his life. If it had not been for them, 
he never would have built as we know it to-day. 

Then let me mention another name. The Jews were 
dispersed. They were intensely patriotic. Why should 
they not stay in Judaea? Instead, they were dispersed 
to the four winds, to the pain of every patriotic Jew. 
But if there had been no dispersal, there would have been 
no St. John’s Gospel. The Fourth Gospel, written out 
of Judaea altogether, came because of the dispersal. 
Without that the Jews would have lost that corner stone 
of early Jewish history. 

A remarkable young man lived in Scotland, and he 
contracted tuberculosis. All his friends who looked at 
him said, What a pity that that young man is doomed 
to die! Why is it that a life like that should be so 
wasted? If it had not been for that tuberculosis, we 
should have had no record of some of the world’s most 
beautiful prayers uttered by Robert Louis Stevenson, in 
the South Sea Islands. That tuberculosis grew to be 
the corner stone of the wonderful arch that Stevenson 
has erected. 

Another young man had an incurable disease, in 


THE STONE THE BUILDERS REFUSED 55 

France, and all his friends said, What a pity, what a 
shame it is, that a scholar like that should be taken. 
There are thousands of men we could do without. 
What is God doing to take a man like that? And 
Amiel’s sickness gave us “Amiel’s Journal,” the most 
spiritual help that I know in his century. Amiel’s sick¬ 
ness is the corner stone of that wonderful arch “Amiel’s 
Journal.” 

One day, outside the walls of a city, a young man was. 
stoned to death, and I imagine the thinkers about saying, 
What a shame that a young man like that should be 
stoned to death. If they had taken a Greek, a stranger, 
maybe it would not have mattered, but to stone a man 
like Stephen, what a loss it is. If Stephen had not died, 
we should have had no Paul, and Paul’s life has for its 
corner stone, practically, the shame he felt at the death 
of Stephen. 

Another disaster in Jewish history, when the Jews’ 
patriotism suffered its rudest shock—the Babylonians 
came down and destroyed that loved home, and all the 
patriotic Jews lamented it. You know the Psalms. You 
know those Psalms of sorrow, where the Jews sing: 
“How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” 
Beautiful to an extreme. 

And if it had not been for that other disaster, there 
would have been no Second Isaiah, the world’s greatest 
preacher. The world’s greatest preacher has for the 
corner stone of his arch the disaster to Israel. 

Shall I go on? You can count those lives in every 
page of history. 


THE HILLS 'OF GOD 


56 

A young man again—you see it is just in the prime of 
life that these things happen, just when the young men 
think they can do the best work that these things happen, 
that is the hardness of it—the young man, in England, 
had read all of the military history he could, and he was 
destined, he thought, to be a great general. And just 
when it looked as if he could do it his health broke and 
he was unfit for the army. What a shame. He might 
have been another Napoleon, and instead he became, 
shall I say, one of England’s greatest preachers, F. W. 
Robertson of Brighton. I know no sermons better to 
read than Robertson’s. When I read them, and see that 
arch that he erected, the corner stone is a sickness. 

Another young man wanted to preach, and a Judge 
said to him: “We want none of your preaching, and if 
you will preach, into jail you go.” And into jail he went. 
Should not we have said, Why is it that one of the best 
is put in jail? The pity of it. The loss of it. The 
disgrace of it. And if Bunyan had not been put in jail, 
we probably should never have seen Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s 
Progress.” The corner stone of that arch is an unjust 
sentence by a foolish Judge. 

Another young man—I didn’t notice before that it was 
all young men, when I collected these names I didn’t 
notice that—but another young man had a friend whom 
he loved more closely than a brother. They studied 
together and took their holidays together. This friend 
died. And the young man, the remaining young man 
said, The shame of it. Is there a God who permits it? 
Nature, apparently, is absolutely careless and indifferent, 



THE STONE THE BUILDERS REFUSED 57 

else Arthur Hallam would never have died. And that 
death gives us Tennyson’s greatest poem “In Memoriam.” 
When you read “In Memoriam” you can put as the 
corner stone of it all Arthur Hallam’s death. 

In all the instances that I mention not one of them 
would have selected as the corner stone of his work 
what evidently proved to be so. Every one of them, 
without exception, would have said, If it had not been 
for that, I should have done better. And perhaps it is 
so in your life. I know it is so in mine. 

The thing that you like least, the experience you think 
your worst hardship, if you face it aright, will prove, 
perhaps, the corner stone of your arch that you are 
building. 

All through life I see a Cross 

Where sons of God yield up their breath. 

There is no gain except by loss, 

There is no life except by death. 

There is no gain except by loss. There is no life ex¬ 
cept by death. And the loss, that death, the Cross, are 
the corner stones which are the most beautiful part of 
our building, if we only use them wisely. 

Of course, I know, despite all I have said, I know that 
to-morrow or the day after if a sorrow comes, I know 
we shall misjudge it. We cannot somehow help it. I 
know that we shall select in the future very foolishly. If 
I may, perhaps, by some strange chance make a speech 
that is acceptable, I shall say, There, I have done good 
work. And if I meet a secret sin, and I tell nobody about 
it; I fight it day after day—and I am ashamed of hav- 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


58 

ing to fight it, so ashamed that I would not tell any one; 
perhaps that secret fight is worth a million times more 
to me than that speech I happened to make. And per¬ 
haps if I meet the sorrow, I shall reject it, but maybe it 
will make me better than any achievement else I could 
gain. 

God help you to judge wisely, whatever the future 
may have in store for you as you are building. And per¬ 
haps the very corner stone of all your life will be the 
thing you dislike most. For it is true, it is universally 
true, 'The stone which the builders rejected is become 
the head stone of the corner.” 

Let us pray. 

Help us, our Father, in our life’s task. We are thankful 
that the building does not altogether depend on ourselves. 
But help us to choose our material wisely, and the days as 
they come to use wisely. Amen. 


JESUS, THE FOUNDER OF OUR 

FREEDOM 


Help us, Holy Spirit, so that we may think now on the 
things which are noble, pure, beautiful, lasting. May we 
consider carefully the fruits of the Spirit, and seek after 
them, and devote our lives to the worthy—we are so apt to 
seek after other things, we are so apt to be anxious and 
worried about the things which are tangible, and apt to for¬ 
get that if the things of the Spirit are ours—if we find the 
Kingdom spiritually, all other things necessary are added. 
Help each one of us now. May we seek all that is worthy, 
and may we quietly but earnestly determine to live more and 
more in the worthy, and leave the rest on one side. 

And as we would thus seek the life that is worth living, 
we also ask that there may be an influence brought so that 
others may seek as we are seeking. 

May selfishness, self-advantage and self-seeking be out of 
every sanctuary, but may all who are worshipping, with one 
mind, try to be as their innermost selves urge them to be. 
May thus every sanctuary be really holy, and may every 
worshipper go home cleansed and purified. May that which 
is base to-day die, and may only that which is abiding be 
strengthened. May every speaker in every sanctuary and in 
every meeting-place give himself or herself to expounding 
the things that belong to the Spirit, may all who lead in 
song alike sing of the riches of the Spirit, and so, for a 
time, may all worshippers, the world over, be one family 
trying to touch the hands of the Great Father. 

Be with the older men and women this day, so that this 
may be one of the best of their Sabbaths; be with the 
younger ones, so that this may be a beginning of a still 
better life. Be with busy men having a load on their 
shoulders; for a time may the load be lightened through the 

59 


6o 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


consciousness of the nearness of God. And be with all who 
are in weakness and in sickness, and may the sick for a time 
be filled with the presence of God. 

Be with all lands, so that to-day all governors and great 
ones of the earth may be humble, childlike, and living for the 
things that abide. 

May the nations think to-day, for a time, of service, of 
being of help, of doing duty, and of themselves leading 
others Godward, and thinking on these things, may the na¬ 
tions forget the things that are temporal and seek the posses¬ 
sions that are eternal. Amen. 

I ask you to think over this morning “Jesus, the 
Founder of our Freedom.” 

Man has always been conscious that there is more in 
life than there seems. At no time has man been satisfied 
just simply with the tangible. He has always felt some¬ 
how that there was something else, and he has always 
been in some way seeking for that Something Else. At 
first, he sought largely to please that Something Else, to 
placate and satisfy that Something Else. Later, I hope, 
he has begun to learn that we have not to please that 
Something Else at all: what we have got to do is to live 
worthy of that Something Else. And all through his 
seeking he has sought in much the same ways. In every 
clime and in every era men have sought very much on 
similar lines, and so there has always been a tendency for 
thought to develop a kind of technique, a fixed order of 
search, and a kind of organization concerning the Un¬ 
seen. So, gradually, there has grown up in every coun¬ 
try what you might call a definite, fixed organization, 
fixed priesthoods and priests who control the organiza¬ 
tion; and, gradually—in every religion it is the same— 


THE FOUNDER OF OUR FREEDOM 61 


there has been one way over which to walk and to seek, 
a definite highway, and all who go out of the highway 
are trespassing, they are unsafe: there is but one way to 
find the Unseen, or God. 

And, parallel with this there has always been another 
movement. Men have always been learning, they have 
been seeking, they have always been finding new thoughts 
and new ideas. They have never been satisfied. I 
heard during the week a lecture on the climbing of Mount 
Everest, by one of the men who tried to climb it, and 
he said, “Well, what was the good of it?’’ After he told 
us all the excitement and all the danger and all the al¬ 
most terrifying endurances, he said, “What is the good 
of it?’’ There is a goal ahead that has never been 
reached, and man wants to reach it. That is the explana¬ 
tion. And it has been so with all life. There is a goal 
ahead, there is a mountain summit that has never been 
trodden and man has something in him that says, “I am 
going to tread it.” 

Men have always been seeking, and, of course, as they 
sought, they gained new life. We don’t think at all to¬ 
day as men thought a few years ago, because we have 
learned new things. 

These two movements have always been clashing. 
There has been the fixed movement that says, “Man has 
sought this way and this is what man has found. This is 
the way of life.” And then there has been the other 
movement which has said, “Yes, but I want to find what 
there is beyond the horizon; and I find that this is beyond 
the horizon, which is different from what we have been 


62 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


accustomed to.” And so there have been priests who 
stood for the attained, and there have been prophets who 
have been trying to find out the unattained, and the two 
never quite get on together. 

The ordinary fixed way is the highway, but there are 
always men who want to climb over the hedge and go 
through the fields and find new flowers and new beauty. 
And the man who is content with the fixed, and the man 
who wants to find the new, have never much in common, 
they never live together harmoniously. 

So, all through religion there has been this strife. The 
priest has said, “The law, which was once delivered”; 
and the prophet has said, “The Lord has yet more light 
and truth to break forth from His Word.” You under¬ 
stand where the difference comes. The world owes much 
to both. Experience is always a helpful teacher; we owe 
that to the priest, who has classified experience. But the 
world would never get anywhere, if it were satisfied with 
things as they are. Every true man wants something 
ahead. And so the world gains from the prophet. All 
ages have these prophets, these pioneers, who have always 
wanted to tread the untrod, who have always wanted to 
go through the virgin forests, who have always wanted 
to subdue the frozen peaks. And perhaps the greatest of 
them all has been Jesus, the greatest pioneer that the 
world has seen, and I want to speak this morning of some 
of the things that he taught us that were new, some of the 
things that he taught us that free us, if only we follow 
them. 

But, first, let me ask you to think over what kind ot 


THE FOUNDER OF OUR FREEDOM 63 

m,an he was. He was unlettered, he knew very little as 
regards scientific knowledge. His thoughts about the 
world, the universe, are considered to-day very childlike. 
He didn’t know much of what we mean by knowledge. 
He had only lived in a village. He had begun to work, 
probably, when he was in his teens, and worked all the 
time. But he was an intense lover of Nature, and I can 
imagine him, when he was a lad in his teens, and when 
his work was done, rambling away over the hills; he got 
passionately fond of the distances, and in those distances 
he felt a touch that every real lover of Nature feels. 
Have you noticed that any one who loves Nature sincerely 
is never narrow? True Nature lovers are always broad 
in their thoughts. Take John Burroughs, take John 
Muir, take James Oliver Curwood, and the list might be 
enlarged: when a man loves the open spaces his soul 
widens out and he sees sights that are invisible to ordi¬ 
nary folks, he hears songs to which ordinary ears are 
deaf, and he makes for himself his own theology. He 
cannot help it. He makes for himself his own explana¬ 
tions of the distances and the grandeurs of life. 

And then Jesus, for all his life, mixed with men. He 
knew what men talked about, he knew what worried men, 
he knew what made men anxious. And sometimes I 
think that ministers forget that. We love the study and 
books, and we get interested there, and we think that is 
what every one is doing; we get interested in our schemes 
of theology, and we think every one is interested on the 
same lines. I am thankful, every day of my life, that I 
had six years mingling with farmers, in Texas. I got an 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


64 

insight of life that I never had before, of which I hope I 
shall never lose the effects. Jesus mingled with men and 
so being a broad lover of Nature and understanding sin¬ 
cerely just what men were interested in, he shaped his 
thoughts accordingly. Now let us turn to what those 
thoughts were, for humble as he was, unlettered as he 
was and simple as he was, what he thought has changed 
the course of history. It is a miracle. What that un¬ 
lettered joiner, as we call him in England—carpenter— 
what he said has changed Western life as nothing else will 
ever change it, and would change it more, if we were 
wise. 

Let us see, therefore, what he taught when he came 
into the public gaze. First of all, and the first lesson of 
freedom, he taught that we should not be anxious. 
He taught freedom from anxiety. He lived in a beauti¬ 
ful, fertile little tract of country. Flowers were always 
growing around there. Nature there was very prodigal. 
When he climbed the hills he had wonderful views, and 
he began to feel the loveliness of it all. Why should he 
be anxious? “If my Father so clothe the grass of the 
field, which to-day is, how much more will He clothe me! 
If my Father paints the lily until it is more gorgeous than 
any beautiful dress, how much more will He care for 
me!” You can see how he reached the conclusion. He 
lived thirty years among natural beauties, he thought they 
gained their beauty from some Great Power Above, and 
so he said, “Why should not I rest in that same love?” 
I know it seems impossible to us. When we are tread- 


THE FOUNDER OF OUR FREEDOM 65 

ing State Street the care of the Eternal is not anything 
like as apparent as it is when we are making our way 
through the meadow. When we are climbing the steps 
of our office and wondering what the day will bring, 
God’s care does not seem anything like as near as it does 
when we are pushing our way through the pine covered 
hills. I know the difficulty, but yet we see one of the 
lessons that Jesus taught, and a lesson that some day, 
probably, we shall understand better. He said, “Be free 
from anxiety. Your Father loves you and cares for 
you.” 

The second freedom he taught was freedom from self- 
seeking. In that little village Jesus saw, probably, no 
rich men. There were no avaricious rich. And he saw 
no poverty that was urging. People were there whom 
we should call poor, but they had always enough, and if 
any there were in need because of circumstances, you 
know how it is in a village—there was always help. But 
now and then, perhaps, he saw some that were avaricious. 
For instance, he gives us a little picture of one man who 
raised such good crops and bought so advantageously that 
he even pulled down his barns and built greater, and you 
know how Jesus seemed to revolt against the very idea, 
and said one of the hardest things he ever said to any one. 
If he noticed in that little village life that there was self- 
seeking, that there were those who wanted the first and 
best places, there was always his dislike for anything of 
the kind. There was nothing to be gained from self- 
seeking, and he could not understand why anybody should 


66 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


wish to amass riches. There was no need for it. If 
anybody was selfish and amassed riches, he hated it. He 
who gained the world lost his character. 

And now you see why he taught “Seek ye first the 
Kingdom of Heaven”—or the Kingdom of the Spirit. 
That is the first thing. Don’t trouble about your own 
personal dignity, never mind that at all, it is not worth 
thinking about. Don’t worry about the first things, 
don’t want to be with the great. Live your life simply. 
Do the good you can, never mind the rest, it is not worth 
worrying about. You see, he taught us freedom from 
self. Every now and then when things happen that I 
think have not given me quite sufficient attention, I am 
irritated. So are you. Every now and then when we 
don’t find our position acknowledged sufficiently, we are 
irritated. We have got that lesson to learn. Freedom 
from self, freedom from self-seeking. That is the second 
thing he taught. 

Then he taught us, thirdly, the freedom from interna¬ 
tional jealousies. Forgive me for using these apparently 
trite words. Jesus knew nothing of international rela¬ 
tionships, but he taught us the way out of them. He 
lived there in a little village, but he saw enough in men to 
understand why nationalities dislike one another. Judas 
took care of that. Judas took care that he knew about 
that, for Judas, you remember, was a great patriot, a 
great politician, and I am certain that time after time 
Judas would tell Jesus what he ought to do. There was 
the Roman official hated by Judas, there were the Greeks 
• bringing in their teaching, hated by Judas. Judas, then, 


THE FOUNDER OF OUR FREEDOM 67 

I have no doubt, said life was worth living only when 
there was liberty. “Give me liberty,’’ he would say, “or 
give me death.” At the present time—I don’t like to use 
almost slang—but at the present time we should say that 
Judas was one hundred per cent. Israelite. He lived for 
Israel and nothing else, and he took good care that Jesus 
should be told that he ought to also; and, apparently, 
Jesus took no notice of it at all. He never said a word 
about either Syrian, Greek, Roman, or even Hebrew, in a 
national sense. He simply left them on one side. They 
were not worthy of interest. When you have lived on 
the mountain and seen the distances, little things are not 
worth bothering about. There is an infinitely bigger 
thing than that I should be a perfectly patriotic Ameri¬ 
can; there is a bigger thing than that. There is an in¬ 
finitely bigger thing than that I should be a true English¬ 
man. There is an infinitely bigger thing than that a Jew 
should be a good Jew. And Jesus saw it. Cleanse first 
the inside of the cup: be yourself, first, what you ought 
to be, and nationalities, then, will work out into their 
right way. Be a man, and you will be a patriot, you can¬ 
not help it; but you will be bigger than a patriot, also. 
And so, all through his life, Jesus simply left little inter¬ 
national cares for those who had nothing more to worry 
about, and what he said was, “I want to be a man.” A 
man in God’s sight. And that was the strength of his 
teaching. He taught us freedom from international 
jealousies. I wonder if every Frenchman, to-day, in his 
church if he should be there, should say to himself, “I 
want to be a man first”; and if every German should say 


68 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


the same thing, I wonder what the effect would be. We 
think over much of exteriors and too little of interiors, 
we dwell too much on objectives and are not subjec¬ 
tive enough. Jesus was subjective in his teaching. And 
that was his third lesson. 

And then the fourth lesson was that he taught us free¬ 
dom from theological dogmas. I have already spoken 
on how impossible it was for him to be narrowed down: 
he could not be bound by what the schools taught. They 
simply stood for surface things. But when you are alone 
in great distances, why theologies seem oft ridiculous. It 
is surprising how little they seem. When you stand in 
solemn silence it seems absurd to talk about a plan of sal¬ 
vation that men have drawn up in thirteen hundred 
years, and to repeat musty phrases. I can understand 
men in a little four-wall classroom limiting God’s ways, 
but I cannot understand anybody doing that on some, say, 
twelve thousand foot height. Jesus left altogether the 
little schemes that would enfold God, and tells just what 
he had come to feel. All he could say was, “There is a 
care somewhere that cares for my village. I call it 

% 

Father—my Father.” And when people told him of the 
old theologies, what he said would be, “I know it was 
said, I know the theologies have said this, but I say— 
and I have seen God on the hills—I say—” And he 
said some very simple things, but so wonderful that the 
world has not yet grasped what he meant. He freed us 
from the trammeling, bounding thoughts of little men and 
took us into the big distances of God. 



THE FOUNDER OF OUR FREEDOM 69 

Those are the four freedoms that I think Jesus gave to 

us. 

But now I want to speak a word of warning. You 
know Milton’s sonnet, when he said the Presbyterians of 
England said '‘liberty,” but they meant "license.” The 
liberty that Jesus brings is not license, and we need to re¬ 
member that. When he wrenched apart the chains that 
would hold him, it was not that he wanted to be free from 
moral claims, and that is where we make our mistake. 
Especially is this true of the Liberal Church. He said, 
"I won’t have your little creeds.” Why? "Because I 
want to get near to God in my own way.” He wanted 
liberty not to do as he liked, but liberty to get near to 
God. "I don’t want to be worried,” he said, "I want to 
live trustfully with God. I don’t want to hate, I want to 
love God. I want all the narrowing things to go, so that 
I can get to God.” 

Friends of the Liberal Church, we are not liberal that 
we may do as we will, we are liberal because we want to 
get near to God. Is that so? Is that so? Sometimes I 
think it is not so. Sometimes I am inclined to feel that 
we want freedom so that we can just do as we like. 
Jesus never brought freedom for that purpose. He 
brought freedom so that we can get nearer to God and 
understand things better. 

The engine on the rails is bound by the rails, the auto¬ 
mobile is bound by good roads. The foot traveller can 
go where he wishes, but if he is the right kind of traveller, 
he goes where there are beauties: he goes where the 


70 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


flowers grow, he goes where the rocks glow in the morn¬ 
ing sunlight, he goes where the sands take on hues of sun¬ 
set—he goes where he can see the things that satisfy his 
soul. And, friends, the true man says, “I am not going 
to be bound by the rails, I am not going to stick on the 
highway, I am not going simply to do what men tell me; 
I am going where I can see God.” That is why Jesus 
sought freedom, and unless we use it like that, it may be a 
curse. Freedom is not a blessing unless it be used like 
that. 

I was on the borders of Mexico when that old-time 
Diaz ruled with a rod of iron—I was there when he was 
deposed and the Mexicans cried out that then they had 
found their freedom. Had they? The Czar of Russia 
was deposed. Russia found its freedom. Did it? 
Simply to have one power removed does not mean we are 
free. 

We are free from dogma so that we can get nearer 
to God. We are free from creed, that we may have more 
unreserved communion. Unless we make our freedom 
an upward move, I would pray God give us bondage. 

There is the problem of all liberal thinkers. Jesus 
brought us freedom, but he brought us freedom so that 
we may use it in communion. God grant that we may 
so use it. 

Let us pray. 

Help us, Father, so that we may use what liberty we en¬ 
joy with wisdom and with blessedness. As we are untram¬ 
meled may we seek all the more the graciousness that was 
with Jesus, and God grant to us that we may find it. Amen. 


COMPULSION BEHIND JUDAS AND 

JESUS 

Our Heavenly Father, help us now to spend an hour in 
Thy real presence. 

Help us to inquire, feeling that the Spirit will answer. 
Help us to worship so that the hour may help us to be the 
men and women that we should like to be. Help us so that 
the hour may lift our lives on to a higher level, so that we 
may more truthfully walk with God. Sanctify each act of 
our service, so that no flitting thought and no unworthy 
motive may disturb the quiet worship of our souls. Amen. 

In the chapter that I read in the Gospel according to St. 
Matthew, chapter xxvii, there occur the following two 
sayings. Referring to Judas, the story in connection 
with him was that “He went away and hanged himself.” 
Then referring to Jesus, the concluding words are, “They 
led him away and crucified him.” 

The two men are closing their lives. The last chapter 
of the lives of two individuals is being written. And it 
is being written very differently. With one it is a de¬ 
feat in all respects. With the other it is a triumph at 
which the world ever since has wondered. 

I have chosen the two closing periods of these lives be¬ 
cause of that contrast, one representing the defeat, the 
other representing the victory, one representing a glorious 
climax, the other a terrible conclusion, a tragedy. They 
are not detached portions of life. There is no detached 

7i 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


72 

portion in any life. No deed in any life is ever detached 
or ever isolated. What I shall do to-morrow does not 
solely depend on what opportunity to-morrow presents to 
me. It also depends on what I have been doing in my 
past life. I do not know what I shall do during the week, 
but what I shall do will be largely shaped by what I have 
done. All lives form one continuous chain, and so the 
tragedy that closed the life of Judas and the triumph 
that ended the life of Jesus are simply links in a chain 
which ran far backward. 

Let us try to trace, for a moment, the links in those 
two chains. Judas was what we call a patriot. He was 
intensely Jewish. And we all know how the Jews are 
separate from others and consider themselves of a 
different life from others. Judas was a Jew of Jews. 
He loved his country. To him it represented everything. 
And he hated the people of all other countries, especially 
those who happened to rule in Judaea at that time. It 
was in the hands of the Romans and, as became a 
patriot, he hated the Romans with a tremendous hatred. 
Whatever he could do, he would do, to injure them and 
advance his own land. His whole dream was a free 
country, and whatever he could do to make it free, he 
would. By and by Jesus came into his life, and Jesus 
was held by some as the promised Messiah, which meant 
the promised one who should bring freedom. At once 
Judas was affected. Here was another Jewish leader. 
Then, as you know, Jesus disappointed him. The ideas 
of Jesus were different from the ideas of Judas, and at 


COMPULSION BEHIND JUDAS 73 

last, instead of admiring him and expecting things from 
him, Judas hated him. 

There is one tragedy in life that is ever present. One 
deed always leads to another. One act of love leads to 
another act of love. One act of hatred leads to another 
act of hatred. And so Judas ended by hating Jesus. 
And by betraying him—he hoped that by the betrayal he 
would serve the cause of his country. When we hate we 
sow the seeds that shall by and by spring up in the har¬ 
vest of tragedy. Judas began by hating, he ended by 
hanging himself. The death is only the sequence to the 
hate. It is not a disconnected event. 

With Jesus the story is different. As you know, when 
he was a young man he faced the choice that comes to 
all men. Should he live the life of the Spirit, or should 
he live the life of his compatriots? Should he fall down 
and worship the ways of the world,,or secretly, sincerely 
and lovingly worship the ways of the Spirit? You have 
the record in the Temptation, and you know the choice 
that he made. Henceforth, for him, he would live the 
life of the Spirit at all costs. When he made that choice 
he sowed the seed which by and by ended in his death. 
For, if we will be true, if we are determined to be true to 
the highest, we are true till death. And when Jesus said, 
“l am the Son of God,” he also said, I will be the Son of 
God at any cost, even unto death. 

Thus the two endings of those two lives are each 
simply the climax of a life of thought. But individual 
lives are always items in collective lives. You and I are 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


74 

in part the men and women our country has made us. 

We are in part what our community and environment 
have made us. However we live, we are affected and 
shaped by our surroundings. And so Judas and Jesus 
were partly caused or, rather, shaped from their country’s 
life. 

Go back in Jewish history and you find, of course, as 
you know, that the Jews considered themselves the chosen 
people, and that very soon, when they settled in Palestine, 
they had, as it were, two codes of laws, one code that be¬ 
longed to the Jew, and another that belonged to the 
stranger within their gates. The Jew was God’s chosen 
instrument. The Gentile was something else. And. 
you remember, Jesus quoted one of the old customs when 
he said, “It has been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor 
and hate thine enemy.” That was a Jewish custom for 
many centuries. And, as I have said, when you hate 
you sow the seeds of death, and so Judas was only a result 
of a long succession of centuries. 

But, on the other hand, the Jews were also a nation 
which had, as is seen from their history, some of the 
finest seekers after God that the world has known. They 
were as we are. You and I are two men or two women. 
The Jews in their nation were two, as it were, a noble 
nation as well as a self-centred nation. Because of their 
nobility they could win the world. So you see the two 
streams of history, the two tendencies in Jewish history 
worked out to their destined end. One end was hatred, 
and we see it to-day. The other end was a Jesus, and 
we see his characteristics to-day. 


COMPULSION BEHIND JUDAS 75 

This is so always in all history. There are two ten¬ 
dencies in life. There are two streams, or ends, one be¬ 
ginning with that which is low and ever moving on to 
that which is lower, one beginning with that which is 
noble and ever progressing toward the more noble. 
There has never been a time when these two tendencies 
have not been observable. 

What does it mean ? Men have always asked. Every 
race has seen these two tendencies, every people of every 
land has seen these two tendencies. 

What does it mean? One is going upward toward the 
Holy City, one is going downward to the City of Destruc¬ 
tion. We see it every day, two great movements of life, 
one of hatred and death, the other of love and life. 

What does it mean? 

The Persian said it means that there are two forces 
in life, one good, one bad. God inspires the upward 
movement, the Devil the lower tendency. The Jews 
took that teaching and adopted it, and I am not sure but 
that the majority of people in America have still some 
rather close alliance with that feature. They see evil, 
and they say it is the work otf the Devil. They see good, 
and they say it is the work of God. Is it so? Is that 
the explanation ? 

Can we say with truth that Jesus triumphed through 
God, and that he was led to his death by the Evil One? 
I do not believe it. I believe according to the saying that 
I put on the bulletin: “The Same Force made Judas 
hang Himself and took Jesus to the Cross.” The same 
force! Behind all life I can see only one Power—God. 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


76 

But that Power works out his way by means of sequences. 
If we do evil, another evil proceeds. If we do good, an¬ 
other good follows. And those laws work out with God 
behind them. To me it is something as it is with a 
parent. A parent has a child. The child begins to 
choose not wisely. The parent urges greater wisdom. 
But the child goes on in its own way, and the parent 
can do nothing. All he can do is to wait until experience 
by and by brings in the necessary teaching. The youth 
must go as he will, into the far-off land, and the only 
thing to do is to wait until the bitter experience there 
works at his will. 

I think it is like that with our Heavenly Father. He 
is behind every man. He stands by the side of all of 
us. But He leaves us the power to choose. If we like 
to choose the lower, well, we can do it; but by and by 
that lower will teach its lesson. And if we will not 
learn, it will teach at last by death and destruction. But 
God is behind us all the time, watching and yearning 
and hoping that we shall be wiser; but if we will not, we 
reap destruction. If we will, say, introduce cheap labor 
by the negroes of Africa, if we will do it, well, then, we 
must pay the price. It cannot be helped. It must be 
done. If we will institute the cheap labor of the Euro¬ 
pean for the sake of the cheap labor, we must pay the 
price. On the other hand, if we will seek freedom and 
liberty and leave a land for the sake of liberty, as the 
Pilgrims did, well, then, the result will be the best stock 
America has and will have. Evil leads to evil, good leads 
to good, under exactly the same set of laws. If we will 


COMPULSION BEHIND JUDAS 77 

be military in spirit, that life we can live, but the end 
will be death such as we have seen. If, however, we 
will follow good and love God, we shall produce men 
like Apostle Eliot and David Livingstone, or women like 
Mary Slessor. The whole works absolutely, irrevocably. 
If we like to choose the low, we can, and then the lower 
follows. If we like to choose the higher, we can— 
and then the higher ensues. And behind both is the same 
Power watching, waiting, yearning, loving. There is no 
other way. You have to learn by experience. 

But there is this suggestion. If what I have said be 
absolutely the whole of the truth, you and I are simply 
straws in the stream of life. Our forefathers started 
the stream, and we are simply straws that must float. 
But what if, somehow—and I am not going to attempt 
to explain it—somehow there is what we call will power? 
I am not going to say freewill, and I am not going 
to say we have not that, because nobody is yet wise 
enough to make either of those statements. But we have 
a certain amount of power, and when we are floating 
down the stream, reaping where we have sown, there is 
some mystic power which will stop us, and we say, I 
realize, and will go back to my Father. While we are in 
the midst of all the pain of it, there is something in man¬ 
kind that can say, I will go back home again, and I will 
confess my sins once more, and lean on my Father’s 
bosom. In our evil tendencies we can have that will. 
We cannot change history, but we can make a distinct 
change in our life’s story. We shall always bear the re¬ 
sult of the past with us when we have been in the far-off 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


78 

country, and even when we have gone home, after it, we 
carry with us the results. But with them a new will and 
a consecrated life. 

Judas, if he had learned the love that Jesus had for 
mankind, would have dropped the hatred that he cherished 
and perhaps would have died the death of a martyr. You 
and I can change, to a great extent, if we will, our life 
story. We may, to-day, be making a mistake. We may 
be erring in many ways. And God help us, if we be, 
to use the will that He has given us! But whatever hap¬ 
pens, I can only see behind it all a Power in our lives 
leading or allowing things to go downward or upward as 
we will, but yearning all the time for the upward move¬ 
ment. 


“O Love that wilt not let me go.” 

There is a Love that will not let us go. God help us to 
listen to it. God help us to lean on that Love, and to 
say, I give my life to Thee. 

Let us pray. 

Help us, our Father, so that in all the days of our life we 
may more and more be fain to will the good and to shun the 
evil. God help us when we are bound by our evil to re¬ 
nounce that evil and go back to goodness. 

In all things help us to see Thy hand and to try to walk 
with Thee. Amen. 


THE WAGES OF SIN 


We are thankful, Heavenly Father, for these opportu¬ 
nities for quiet worship and for silent search after the things 
that belong to the higher life. May this day be thus a bless¬ 
ing to all the children of men. May mankind, the 
world over, during this day, seek the things which they know 
to be higher and learn better how to put aside the things 
that are known to be lower. Be wherever men are this day 
and be where every individual is casting the soul’s eyes 
upwards. 

Be with all who are meeting in the sanctuary, all who are 
meeting in the temple of any faith, all who are seeking the 
best things in common or in the home life, all who within, 
to-day, are feeling an upward call, all who are hearing in 
some way the “still, small voice,” as the hours come and 
go. And be with any who may not be quite contented and 
satisfied, who may have good things that appeal to the body 
and so are careless of the good things that appeal to the 
soul. May such as are thus satisfied perhaps be rendered 
unsatisfied to-day. May there be something that perhaps 
shall disturb, some comparison which may perhaps dis¬ 
quiet. And, for a time, may we all look towards the heights 
and be unsatisfied with the life of the plain. 

Be with all who are travelling, all who are seeking change 
and physical health. May the day be to them not simply 
a day of physical help, but also a suggestion that shall bear 
fruit in spiritual realms. 

Be with all who are trying in any way to do good. And 
if there be any who are trying to do evil, may some one or 
some thing be able to restrain them. 

Thus may the day, the world over, in every land, be a 
day when men seek to do good and to be good, and when 

79 


80 THE HILLS OF GOD 

men for a time put aside the promptings to do evil and be 
evil. 

May the day be God’s day, and may we all recognize our¬ 
selves as God’s men and women. 

Be with all who shall pass the day in pain, or in suf¬ 
fering of any kind. May the pain and the suffering, some¬ 
how, be turned to benefit, and through the pain of the pres¬ 
ent may the spirit of the future be born. 

May we all learn by what we suffer, so that eventually 
suffering, darkness, and disappointment alike shall be instru¬ 
ments that we use for gain. 

Again we pray for ourselves. Help us, day by day, to 
find a good life, and as far as we can to keep our faith. 

Help us, day by day, so that the whole of life is one 
ascent, so that each succeeding day we are better men and 
women than on the preceding, so that all along we grad¬ 
ually but surely climb and see further and further into 
God’s great realm. 

Be with those who are meeting, who have been meeting, 
in company, during the week. Despite differences of opin¬ 
ion, despite differences of ideals, may all who are longing 
for good things fight earnestly and live nobly, and so by the 
goodness of life make appear small the littleness of mere 
policies. 

May we all our life be really better than our theology and 
nobler than our expectations of life. Amen. 

In the words that I read from St. Paul in his Letter 
to the Romans, chapter vi, verse 23, there occurs that 
well-known saying, “The wages that sin pays are death,” 
or, as we more commonly quote it, “The wages of sin 
are death.” 

I want to speak of that saying this morning, but, first 
of all, I want us to agree on a definition of what sin is, 
if we can so agree. All theological terms, unfortunately, 
need explanation. That is why I so rarely use a theo- 


THE WAGES OF SIN 81 

logical term if I can help it. Whatever word we use, 
such, say, as '‘grace,” what do we mean by it; or "re¬ 
pentance,” what do we mean by it; or especially that word 
that is so often quoted, "divine,” what do we mean by it? 
Every time we use a theological term there is a question 
subconsciously asked, what do we mean by it? Our old 
professor in college said, "Never use a word, if you can 
help it, that needs definition, always use simple Anglo- 
Saxon that folk can understand.” If we would do that, 
I believe nine-tenths of our theological discussions would 
fall to the ground. We quarrel over the word, and we 
probably give to that word very, very differing definitions. 

Now, what do we mean by "sin”? The best defini¬ 
tion I have ever seen is in a book written by a literary 
man, not by a theologian. I do not know whether any 
of you know the book, "The Religion of a Literary Man," 
by Richard Le Gallienne. It is the best description, 
generally speaking, of religion that ever I read, simple, 
direct, and free altogether from debatable words. And in 
amongst the rest of the description that he gives of reli¬ 
gion is the definition of sin. I will read you that def¬ 
inition. "Generally stated, I would define sin as that 
which, in any time, or country, or under whatsoever con¬ 
ditions or outward appearances, means the living by the 
lower instead of the higher side of our natures. We 
cannot tell what that higher side ultimately’signifies, any 
more than we can tell what that lower signifies. We only 
know that one is higher and one is lower, and that it is 
the evident intention of Nature that we should live ac¬ 
cording to the higher.” 


82 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


In all my reading I have never met a definition that 
I think quite satisfied me as well as that does. Sin is 
that which under various conditions or differing condi¬ 
tions is the living by the lower—is the living by the lower 
instead of the higher nature. Of course, the lower and 
the higher will constantly vary. I mean, what is higher 
one day will be lower again another day. You climb one 
peak because it looks so high from the valley. When you 
have climbed it you see another mountain higher and you 
climb that, and the first height then is low. It all de¬ 
pends where we are as to what is high and what is low. 
And it is so in conduct. What is high to-day may be 
low to-morrow. What is the higher life this year may 
be the lower life next year. And Le Gallienne says sin is 
the living at any time by the lower in place of the higher, 
and, as he says, we all do mean—we cannot explain it, 
but we all do mean—that there is a higher and that 
there is a lower. We know it instinctivelv. And we 
sin when we live by that which we know—or instinctively 
feel—to be low. 

I wonder if you agree with me in that definition. If 
so, we will change the words of the text and say, “The 
wages of living by the lower are death.’’ The wage that 
the lower pays is death. Now, let us take that rendering 
of the words and see how true this is, first, in what we 
might call general physical life. 

Apparently, as far as we know, life progresses from 
the simplest forms to the more complex. Apparently, 
somewhere and at some time, life began in a very low 
form, in a simple cell. Perhaps, as far as the vegetable 



THE WAGES OF SIN 


83 

kingdom goes, in that lichen which creeps over the rock’s 
face to-day. Life began in a simple form; and it then 
commenced, as I have said, to come to grow toward more 
complex forms, and has been changing thus for nobody 
knows how long, at any rate, into the millions of years; 
and, apparently, the climax, so far, of the progress is a 
soul. The beginning was a cell, the end, as far as we can 
see it, is a soul. Between the two, of course, there are 
innumerable progressions. 

All the changes mean, of course, movements, and to 
every movement there is a reaction. Apparently, all the 
way through life, for every change, against every change, 
there has been opposition. It is always so. The pioneer 
says, “Let’s go out West.’’ The home-lover says, “No, 
let’s stay at home.’’ Everywhere there are two move¬ 
ments. One says, “Let’s go.” The other says, “No, 
let’s stay,” and there is always a conflict between the 
two. 

The conflict comes from very obvious reasons. If we 
move, we go into uncertain life. We don’t know what 
is going to happen. At home, we do know fairly well 
what is likely to happen. If we move, we are sure 
about incurring difficulty. If we stay, well, there will be 
less of difficulty. If we move, there is nothing sure. If 
we stay, there is some assuredness. If we move, all the 
joys are in contemplation. If we stay, we experience 
what joys we know. And so, all through life there are 
these two sides, one an upward urge, an onward call, the 
other, desire for rest, for certainty, for physical enjoy¬ 
ment. 


8 4 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


I often wonder how it is we all got life under con¬ 
ditions of the same order. 

There has always been a westward move. There have 
always been spirits who have said, “Go West,” and there 
have always been those who said, “No, stay East.” All 
through life we have these two opposing conditions. St. 
Paul speaks of it in his own body, in the place that I 
read: “What I would, and what I would not, are ever 
present with me.” 

If we stay, strange to say, we die. If we are sta¬ 
tionary, strange to say, we lose power. If we choose, as 
it were, a lower, we become atrophied. All through the 
upward march of life we find forms that have passed 
out of existence, forms that stayed low, that could not 
adapt themselves to an onward life, and so passed out. 
Every time we read of differing strata we find forms 
of life that have gone. They stayed lower, they died. 
The wage that the lower pays is death. 

Let us now pass on to the workings of this “low” in 
things spiritual. I always feel a little doubtful—I don’t 
know how you feel about it—when I read scientists and 
find that they say that man is the final climax of physical 
changes. Fiske says so. I see that Thomson says so, 
in later days—that the human being is the climax, the 
ultimate end, of physical development. I feel like doubt¬ 
ing that, somehow. It may be that there will be some¬ 
time a higher physical form than ours. I do not think 
we know enough to make it a statement. But, how¬ 
ever that may be, it does seem pretty sure that with the 
development of mankind there came a change in the up- 




THE WAGES OF SIN 


85 

ward movement, and that the change instead of being 
further physical became largely what we may call spiritual, 
a development made in another sphere, this time in the 
inner life, the heart sphere, the soul sphere, the same 
development in that sphere that had taken place in the 
physical. Day by day, in the soul sphere, there are 
calls to move, shall I say, “West”? There are calls to 
occupy new ground. And I am not sure that we are 
responding. 

I wonder, to-day, if in the soul’s sphere we have de¬ 
veloped, say, from the days when Mohammed was at his 
height. I wonder if the soul of the true Mohammedan, 
who conquered Southern Europe, who taught us so many 
things in those days—I wonder if you and I, in our soul, 
have gone any higher than he was. I wonder when I 
think of Greeks at their best, when I read Plato, I wonder 
if you and I have gone ahead of him in our soul life. 
I wonder if, as the centuries come and go, if we are grow¬ 
ing along that line as man has grown along the physical 
line from lower forms. And, sometimes, in my despon¬ 
dency, I doubt it. I sometimes doubt whether the man, 
say, who walks the streets of Boston is any better than 
the man who, in old days, pondered and thought about 
God, on the sides of the Himalayas. I mean, in soul life. 
I wonder, sometimes, if the man who lives, I don’t care 
whether in Newton or the South End, whether that man 
is any better, say, than the man who trod the streets of 
old Babylon—in his soul life. I am not concerned with 
physical development here, I mean in the inner life, of 
the soul, in the touch that one has with his God, and in 


86 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


the response that one makes to the upward call, the 
“still, small voice.” 

Are we growing that way? And yet I am certain of 
this, that Sin is living by the lower, and if you and I 
are living by the lower levels of the soul, then there is 
only one end, for what we do not use dies. That is 
invariably true. If you and I do not use our soul life 
as we should, it will pass. You see evidences of this 
every day. The man who lives in the slum so loses ap¬ 
preciation of nature that he cannot appreciate anything 
that is beautiful. Take the man from the slum and put 
him on the slope of a lonely mountain and, however 
beautiful the landscape, he will be miserable. He loses a 
certain sense. Take a man who lives purely for wealth¬ 
making and put him in a museum or picture gallery and 
he might as well be in a jail. He has lost unconsciously 
the sense of appreciation. Let a man who has forgotten 
music, or become careless of it, let him go to a concert 
and he will be glad when the end of the concert comes. 
He has lost a certain sense. 

What we do not use we lose, and this is just as true 
as regards our touch with God. If you and I forget 
God, by and by we are absolutely unconscious of His 
presence. 

How is it in our lives? Are you better to-day than 
you were last June? Do you 'see and hear the Divine 
where you did not see it then? Do you hear the “still, 
small voice” to-day when you didn’t hear it twelve months 
ago? 


THE WAGES OF SIN 87 

Is the average American quickened much more spiritu¬ 
ally inside than the average Oriental ? 

When I ask myself that I dare not answer. I dare 
not give a reply. 

Am I more conscious of my Master to-day than I was 
ten years ago when I left England? I shrink from the 
reply. Are you to-day, say, when you are forty, fifty, or 
sixty, a better and a truer soul than you were when you 
were twenty or thirty? And I dare say you shrink from 
the answer. And yet if we are content with the lower, 
the higher will pass altogether out of our life, and we 
shall simply be a human being, physically, but not 
spiritually. 

Will you think over this? Will you watch this side 
of your life? Will you guard this side of your nature? 
Every day should see a change, and an old Christian 
should be a saint. A person who has attended this 
church from childhood to manhood or womanhood ought 
to be a saint. I am not saying that harshly, but the 
higher is always calling, God’s voice is always inviting, 
and we sin when we refuse the invitation upwards. 

I remember, down in El Paso, one of the old natives 
and I went to see something on Mt. Franklin. He said, 
“I have never seen that before/’ and he had lived there 
forty years. I am afraid we live without God and often 
do not see and do not hear and therefore do not obey. 
The wages of living by the lower are death. I want you 
to have life, Life Eternal, and I pray that for you all 
every year may find you advancing in spiritual insight, 


88 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


growing in spiritual grace, and becoming, by and by, so 
beautiful that men know you live with God. 

May you and I listen to the higher, for if we listen to 
the lower, the Wages of Sin are Death. Amen. 

Let us pray. 

Be with us, Father, and help us to seek Thee constantly. 
Help us to turn often aside. Day by day, help us to make 
the habit of turning out from the noise into the quiet, out of 
the excitement to the calm. Day by day, may we close our 
ears to the voices around, and hear the Spirit’s voice. 
Amen. 


THE CRITICS OF THE BIBLE 


Our Heavenly Father, we seek that the unuttered words 
of prayer may be answered of Thy goodness. We seek that 
the silent prayers of each heart shall be answered by the 
Heavenly Fullness. 

We come together with one purpose, but from very differ¬ 
ing histories. Some of us come from business that oft is 
disquieting and distracting; some of us come from anxieties 
that, do as we will, hang like the thunder shower threaten¬ 
ingly above us. Some of us come from failures from lack of 
success in doing that which we should like to do. Some of us 
come in physical weakness and in anxiety that arises there¬ 
from. Some of us come carrying a burden of perhaps un¬ 
wisdom, perhaps the unwisdom of others that forms a load 
for ourselves. Some of us come from homes that are pass¬ 
ing through differing and difficult stages. And we bring in 
common the cry of the human heart after Divine guidance 
and perfection. Grant that in some way—in some way that 
perhaps we cannot describe in words, grant that in some way 
our yearnings may find satisfaction and our loads may find 
a co-bearer. May we hear the words of Jesus translated 
into the words of the Eternal, “Come unto Me all ve that 
are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” May 
the peace of God, which we cannot explain, enter subtly into 
each life, and so mav we go back walking as though we were 
more erect, with eves more glistening and with hopes more 
firmly placed. May we go back to live again the life that 
we know true men and women desire to live. 

And as this Divine help comes to us we prav that it mav 
come likewise to our friends who are not with us in wor¬ 
ship. "Re with those of our number who are kept from us 
bv weakness, those who are away from us by reason of 
infirmity and age. May the homes of which we thus think 

8q 


90 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


for a time be fragrant with the incense of the Holy Pres¬ 
ence. And be with all who are worshipping, so that the 
blessings that we seek may be found of them, for we know 
that all are seeking through whatsoever paths they are walk¬ 
ing and whatsoever thoughts they are entertaining. 

Be with all this day in every sanctuary and Holy place. 
And be very near to those who are unconscious of any 
search, for sometimes we so far forget our heritage that we 
are content in little places, satisfied with small accomplish¬ 
ments, and happy with purely sensual happiness. Be with 
such to-day, and may there be some alluring thought, some 
enticing invitation, some message that shall make, perhaps, 
unwilling feet commence to climb the hills of God. 

Let the Divine blessing rest on all men and women every¬ 
where, on all nations, on all races, and in all climes, and for 
one day may there be one family seeking one Father, and 
finding one Divine satisfaction. 

Be with us during the days on which we have entered, 
be with the Church here guiding and directing and inspir¬ 
ing, and may we all, day by day, grow in graciousness and 
in the knowledge of our Heavenly Father. Amen. 

The subject on which I am speaking to-day is one 
selected for me, The Critics of the Bible. It is not, per¬ 
haps, just the kind of subject that I, myself, would choose 
for Sunday morning. I somehow prefer, as I think you 
do, something more helpful to our deeper life, but I will 
try my best to make this helpful on those lines. 

The Bible has always been a subject of criticism, and 
of that we make no complaint. The more criticism of 
the Bible the better. We welcome 1 all criticism. 

There are two schools of critics, one, perhaps now de¬ 
creasing, which seeks criticism in order to destroy; an¬ 
other school, which criticises in order to emend and 
amend. It is as though a man had, say, a political op- 


THE CRITICS OF THE BIBLE 


9i 


ponent and he determined to kill that opponent by some 
way or other, and made harsh criticism thereof with 
the intention of destroying. Some critics, perhaps, take 
that stand. Then, again, perhaps, we have a friend that 
we see falling into error and with a timely criticism we 
seek to save him from his faults. That is a second type 
of criticism of the Bible. Some criticise to destroy, some 
to amend. The first kind we term destructive criticism. 
This had its birth largely from the view that was pre¬ 
vailing at the time as regards the Bible. You remember 
when the Reformation took place there was deep down 
in men a determination to be free from the outside 
government of the Church, men were determined to throw 
off the bonds of the outside Church, and they said very 
largely men could find their own life and that men were 
justified by their believing, by their faith, but yet they 
felt, all the way through, that men needed some outside 
guidance. They could not however quite trust men to 
themselves, and so, instead of the Church, gradually there 
came the Bible. They said, “If men are justified by be¬ 
lieving, what should they believe? The Bible will tell 
all that is necessary.” And so the Bible took the place 
of the Church. But, as you know, the Bible is not per¬ 
fect. The old friends said that it was—that every sen¬ 
tence was exact, that every statement was accurate, that 
everything in it was of Divine inspiration, and that it 
was an infallible standard and guide for conduct. Now, 
men who read soon saw that those statements could not 
be substantiated. It is not infallible, because it contra¬ 
dicts itself; and if you are infallible, you cannot contra- 



92 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


diet yourself. There cannot be two infallible contraries 
that are both equally true. And then the Bible does 
things—it makes God do things that we would not do, 
sometimes God is pictured as saying things that we would 
not say. And so men said, “This must be killed,” and 
there arose a contest of destructive criticism. But as re¬ 
gards practically all of them I think we can say that they 
have our sympathy. The fault was not with the critics 
but with the standard that they criticised. The wrong 
view of the Bible gave birth to the criticism which fol¬ 
lowed. 

Now let me pass on to constructive criticism. Here 
we have a different view of the Bible. Instead of it 
being regarded as an infallible standard, as an unmistak¬ 
ing guide, we regard the Bible as a record, as an actual 
accretion, a gradual building up of customs and faiths and 
ways. As such it is at places high in tone, in other places 
low in tone. As an accretion, it necessarily, many a time, 
shows contradiction. No growing man is consistent. 
Every man who is growing is obliged to be inconsistent, 
and the Bible is inconsistent, but it is because of its 
growth. How is it and why is it that in one place it 
assumes something that I do not agree with, and that in 
another place it contradicts this assumption? Why is it 
that there are differing customs which contradict each 
other? What is the meaning of it all? And so scholars 
have said, ^We will find out as far as humans can find 
out, we will understand what it all means.” And all we 
can say of the critics is good. I cannot understand any 
sensible person ever grumbling at a criticism of the Bible. 



THE CRITICS OF THE BIBLE 


93 

By all means, let us learn all we can, by all means, let us 
find every explanation we can; and if at times we have to 
change our opinions—well, a man who never changes 
is not worth anything. Every wise man changes his 
opinions. I should not like to think that I think to-day 
just as I did when I was twenty, and I hope I shall not 
think when I am seventy just as I think now. Every 
wise person changes. And so after criticism if we change 
our opinion of the Bible, all the better. 

Now, there are two schools of critics, divided accord¬ 
ing to the work on which they particularize. 

First, there are what we call the lower critics. These 
deal altogether with the language in the Bible. They 
take the language in which it is written and try to 
find out exactly the meaning of each word. I remember 
for a week in college we spent the whole of the lectures 
on two conjunctions, “if” and “and.” We did nothing 
else during the whole week. It was not very exciting, 
and I dare say that some of us allowed our thoughts to 
wander, like yours, many a time, when folks are preach¬ 
ing ; many a time, our thoughts are a hundred miles away 
from the minister’s. But it is work like that that grips 
every little point, and it is those little points that by and 
by shine out and make us understand the meaning of the 
language of the olden days. And then, again, critics try 
to find out what was the language used; I mean, what 
were the words. You understand why that was nec¬ 
essary. We have no manuscript of the Bible older than 
the fourth century A. d., and, say, twelve hundred years 
after some of the work was written. The oldest Bible 


94 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


we have is about the fourth century. We have about 
ninety-seven old ones, really old. And the old ones were 
all written in capital letters. There is no spacing between 
the words, there is no spacing between the sentences or 
chapters. Now, you can understand it is difficult to read 
them, even for a scholar. When you put a row of 
capitals across the page, even in English, you cannot read 
at first glance. You can go over and divide the words. 
There are ninety-seven old ones like that. And then there 
are nearly two thousand a little younger, written in script, 
the ordinary running hand, the long running hand. 
These do not naturally quite agree. You will understand 
why they do not. They are all written by hand. One 
man copied from another. Now, when you are writing, 
you know directly how easy it is to make a mistake, quite 
unintentionally you make a slip, perhaps omit a word, 
or perhaps put another word in; or perhaps you are 
writing from dictation and you do not quite accurately 
catch what was said, and you write again the wrong word. 
When these copyings go on day after day, day after day, 
you will understand that many a time the sentences, or, 
at least, the words, are changed, and what scholars tried 
to do was to find what was the original. The older the 
manuscript, of course, the more authority it has. Then, 
again, there is a temptation when you are writing to 
purposely alter now and then. You come across some¬ 
thing that you don’t quite understand, and you are copy¬ 
ing, and you hesitate: “Now, what does that mean?” 
Let me give you one example in the very first chapter 
of Deuteronomy. There occur these words, “These are 


THE CRITICS OF THE BIBLE 


95 

the laws which Moses wrote—on this side.” The Re¬ 
vised Version says “beyond.” “On this side,” “beyond.” 
You see the difference. What is the reason? They 
mean absolutely the opposite. Here comes in the work 
of the critics. You know the old belief that Moses wrote 
Deuteronomy, and you know perfectly well the old be¬ 
lief that Moses never crossed the Jordan. Therefore, if 
he wrote Deuteronomy, he only could write it on the side 
on which he was. Naturally, he did. Moses was “on 
this side.” If Moses wrote it, the lines would be on the 
side on which he was—“this side.” But if somebody else 
wrote it later, who was across the river, he would say, 
would he not, “These are the words which Moses wrote” 
—he never crossed the river—“beyond.” If a man on 
this side was writing, it would be “Moses wrote beyond.” 
If Moses wrote, he wrote “on this side”; he would not 
write anywhere else. Now you see the position of a man 
who is transcribing an old manuscript. If he comes to 
a word which is undoubtedly “beyond,” undoubtedly that 
—the scribe says, “That is wrong, that is wrong. Moses 
could not write ‘beyond,’ because he never was beyond; 
that must be a mistake, I will change it, I will put it 
‘on this side.’ ” And that was done. That has only been 
found out because of the lower critics. And that is 
only one example of many. The lower critics say, “Let 
us get it right according to the original text, as far as we 
can,” and, of course, that is wise. That is why we have 
the Authorized and the Revised Versions. The revisers 
find many more manuscripts, we are always finding them, 
they are to be found continually in old libraries in the 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


96 

East, and they are examined and changed, in many cases. 
Is there anything to be afraid of? I should like to ap¬ 
peal to our Orthodox friends, is there anything to be 
afraid of? Is it not just the right thing to do, to try to 
get at the actual language that was used in those far-off 
days? So much, then, for the lower critics. 

Then, there is another type of criticism, called higher 
criticism. This does not trouble so much with the words, 
the language. But they ask, When was this book written, 
who wrote it, why was it written? And the scholars set 
themselves to answer these questions. 

We all know that the chapter headings are not relia¬ 
ble, they were placed in there much later. We never take 
any notice of them to-day. And so the questions arise, 
Why, When, Where, Who wrote this book ? And to find 
out, several methods are adopted, and all of them, I assure 
you, would improve it. The first method is to look at 
the language. I do not mean the distinctive use of the 
words, but the language as a whole, and you can learn a 
great deal from that. For instance, if anybody brought 
to me now, to-day, say two dialects, two dialect books, one 
written in Yorkshire and another written in Sussex, I 
could tell before I read six lines which came from York¬ 
shire, because of the different words that were used. 
And that is exactly one of the criterions. Scholars know 
their Greek and their Hebrew well enough to know when 
they read it that it comes from a certain district and it was 
presumably written, therefore, in that district. Nobody 
else could read a book of Yorkshire stories except a York- 
shireman. If I read a line of Yorkshire dialect, I am 


THE CRITICS OF THE BIBLE 


97 


bound to say no one of you could follow me. A scholar 
finds just the same as regards Greek and Hebrew. He 
knows where to place each. And then, again, he judges 
by style. We all have our style of speaking and writing. 
Most of them differ. I know the first time I saw a short¬ 
hand report of one of my sermons I said, “Do I speak 
like that?” We all have our style. In Punch there has 
been a series of little short stories imitating the great au¬ 
thors. Directly you began to read, you knew whom the 
man was imitating. You could not confuse Marie Corelli 
and John Ruskin. And it is so in the Old Testament. 
Scholars can tell, when two men are writing side by side. 
One man says, for instance, when he speaks of his God, 
Elohim, another Jahweh: two men, two different styles 
of writing. And that runs right through. A critic can 
tell pretty well when any man wrote. If you take your 
oldest manuscript, scholars say there is very, very ample 
evidence that two men, at any rate, have been writing 
in that manuscript. Then, in addition to the style and, 
as I have said, to the words used, you can tell very 
largely by the words when each was written. For in¬ 
stance, if you read a letter that spoke about the tele¬ 
phone, you would know that that letter was not written 
seventy years ago, because there was no telephone. And 
if you read a letter from somebody else or to somebody, 
mentioning the aeroplane, you would know very well the 
era when it was written. According to the words used 
you have a guide to the time when written. And if a 
book says, for instance, as when the Old Testament book 
says, “There was no king in those days,” you would know 


98 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


very well that the man who wrote that did it when there 

V 

were kings. The very sentence indicates the time. And 
then when a man writes about something that naturally 
happened say 120 b. c., you say immediately that this 
book was not written before that time. You can very 
largely fix the time by the type of words and by the his¬ 
torical references that are mentioned. 

This goes right through all the higher critic’s work. 
Of course, as new discoveries are made, new theories 
have to be adopted. I cannot see why, then, our most 
Orthodox friends object to the work of the higher critics. 
It is simply unraveling a mystery, it is simply unbaring a 
treasure, and it is adjusting theories to the sources in 
which they arose. 

Now, what happens? Of course, at first, when any¬ 
one begins to criticise, he begins negatively. That is 
the first step always. If you are going to have a new 
building, your first step is to pull down the old one and 
put the new one in its place. Unfortunately, so many 
are terrified when you begin to be negative, when you be¬ 
gin to say, “This is not so.” But, surely, if we are wise, 
we shall say, “If it be not so,”—and then go on to con¬ 
structive criticism which follows. And this leads me 
to express my heartfelt thanks for the work the critics 
have done. Why, the Bible is different altogether to¬ 
day from what it was even, say, a hundred years ago. It 
means so much more. Have you never—I am sure you 
have—in Sunday school had your teacher say something 
like this, “Well, you know, of course, that is—that is 
not—” and then the teacher stops; he does not know quite 


THE CRITICS OF THE BIBLE 


99 

what to say; he does not like to apologize about certain 
things. When the text runs, “God says so and so,” 
the teacher has not known quite what to say. Now¬ 
adays we know what to say. We say, “That is a story 
written so and so; at the time, people believed so and so, 
and it was right then, but since that time we have 
changed; that story was right when it was written, it is 
wrong to-day. It was a half-god, and the whole gods 
have come since then.” We make no apology now. We 
explain according to the knowledge that we have gained. 
And so the Bible fits in, right in, say from 800 down to 
120' or 50, and with its fitting in with the times we have 
pictures of the times. 

Let me show you very briefly the uses to which our 
Bible is put. First of all, the historian looks at it and 
wonders why certain customs arose, and the Bible is 
one of the helps to tell him. When he is wondering 
about human sacrifice, he reads his Homer and under¬ 
stands what the Greek says. Then he reads the old story 
of Abraham and Isaac and understands that in those days 
human sacrifice was right; but by and by it is wrong, 
and no longer is it practised. And so with many customs. 
The old method of worshipping anywhere on a hilltop— 
we find that in the early days of the Hebrews, in the early 
days of all Eastern people, people so worshipped, and 
then we find gradually the custom of going to one centre 
such as Jerusalem. We find the stories progressing 
right through the Old Testament. 

And so right along the Bible is one of the guides to 
what has been the custom of life and one of the guides 


IOO 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


to thinking about life. I don’t know whether you ever 
read that very attractive book on the “Five Great Dramas 
of History.” Job heads the list, Homer follows, Faust 
follows, Dante follows. In Job, we have what men were 
thinking, how they tried to solve the problems of life. 
Then, as regards nationalities, we have numberless helps. 
We have our main thought as regards the ideal, too. It 
is beautifully attractive in Micah, beautifully attractive 
in Jonah, the old stories. You see, the Bible begins to be 
something living. It is the story of living, of a nation, 
it is a story of men and women’s active thinking. It is 
not a standard that says, “There it is, don’t touch it.” 
It is a living book, and when I want to understand a 
thing I turn to it as toward a living book and as a living 
voice that guides me. 

Then, again, the anthropologist, who wants to under¬ 
stand men’s inner customs, turns to it along with the 
rest, and it guides him. 

But, most of all, we have gained by it as a book of 
devotion. All the other objects that I have mentioned 
are great, they are all absolutely necessary, but we want 
something else. We want an aid when we are trying to 
be better men and women. We want a help when we are 
tossed by the storms. We want a strong arm when we 
seem about to be dashed on the rocks. We want more 
than what barely human help can be. We want some¬ 
thing else, and we find that something else infinitely 
better in the Bible when we understand it. I see the na¬ 
tions making their huge piles, and I can turn to the old 
prophets and hear them preach against national greed; 


•> .) 
•> <> 
© ) > 


THE CRITICS OF THE BIBLE 


IOI 


I see men set themselves up to be demagogues and to 
show false ideals to the people, and I turn to Isaiah where 
he pictures his very high ideal, and I say, “That is the 
man that shall lead eventually to the Holy City.” And 
I am storm-tossed in my thoughts of the Father, I am 
not so certain of the Divine Providence as I should like 
to be, and I go on one side and sit with Jesus. Once— 
once, I could not have used it like that, for I should have 
been all the time thinking that Isaiah meant simply Jesus, 
when he talked about the ideal life. Now I know that 
he means every one—that the ideal life is like that. 
And when once I read of Jesus, I should have said, “Yes, 
that is all right for Jesus, all right for him, but he was 
different from us, he was born differently from us, he 
was divine.” I don’t say now he was not divine, I say 
he was just like us. There he was, a young, raw fellow, 
fighting life just as we are; and so he is an example to 
me, and I read his beautiful pictures. 

I have been wondering where I should put the climax 
of the Bible, in this respect. Where should you place it 
as regards devotional help? Perhaps, I should say that 
in the Old Testament, that unknown Hebrew poet 
reached the highest point when he sat down one day and 
wrote, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He 
maketh me to lie down in green pastures. Yea, though 
I walk through the valley of the shadow, I will fear no 
evil.” Perhaps that is the climax of the Old Testament 
poetry. And the climax of the New, perhaps, apart from 
Jesus, was when Paul wrote, “The greatest of these is 
love,” that wonderful, sublime little chapter. 


102 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


But you see, now that men believe in the Bible, we can 
choose. I can feel what helps me, and choose it. The 
critics have been working, and I thank God for it; and I 
hope they will continue to do so. Sometimes they may 
destroy something that I thought was good. I cannot 
help it, because eventually there springs up something 
else that will be more helpful and more inspiring. Do 
not tremble—I am surprised at folks trembling over truth. 
Do not tremble about truth. It stands, and it always will 
stand. There is one thing that never fails, that is truth; 
only I pray that God may make me faithful to it, may I 
when I see it recognize it, and when I recognize it may I 
give my life to it. May the Bible be more and more to 
me as the days come and go, may it be more and more to 
you as you read and learn. 

Let us pray. 

Eternal Father, we thank Thee for the revelation of Thy¬ 
self, we thank Thee for every whisper that tells the truth. 
Help us to listen to those tones, and help us to be obedient 
to the Heavenly Message. Amen. 


THWARTED AMBITION 


Let us join together in silent prayer. 

Eternal Father, Holy Spirit, we gather to-day from dif¬ 
fering homes, bringing differing life stories; from differing 
ambitions and purposes, from varied experiences, trials, and 
temptations we bring our life’s record and we lay it before 
the Spirit and speak silently of our wishes. Some of us 
crave for strength, some for comfort, some for guidance 
under perplexity, some for inspiration under disappoint¬ 
ment, and some for forgiveness for forgetfulness. 

Grant, Father, to each separate life the real touch of the 
Spirit, so that as we bow we may feel Thy strength entering 
into us. As we worship, may we feel the loads that we 
have carried being dropped or lightened. And so may our 
lives become wrapped around in Thy brightness. May the 
words that we have heard sung be re-echoed in every life. 
May we find peace, may we find salvation, and may we all 
recognize how beautiful are the feet of the Spirit which are 
bringing such blessings. 

May thus this hour of worship be an hour of rebirth, of 
rededication, of reconsecration to Thyself. 

And as this Divine blessing we seek for ourselves, we 
also seek it for all men and women. May every Sanctuary 
be holy ground. May every minister be sanctified of the 
Spirit. May all who lead in song feel that their voices are 
hallowed instruments of the Almighty. May every Church, 
every Cathedral, every holy Grove, every Synagogue, every 
Mosque, every place where men assemble, be this day the 
gateway of Heaven. And may many visions delight the 
souls of men, and may men, as a result of imagination, say 
to themselves, “Lo, this, Thy Sanctuary, is holy ground.” 

Thus may the day shape the whole of the thoughts and 

103 


104 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


purposes of men. May a hallowed peace take the place of 
disquiet, and may a holy purpose take the place of selfish¬ 
ness. 

May the nations, through the individual, find themselves, 
this day, seeking more earnestly the gifts of the Spirit. Be 
with all rulers. May it be, this day, that they bow their 
heads before the Eternal Ruler. Be with all governors. 
May they, this day, be clothed with humility; and in ear¬ 
nestness seek guidance, so that they may guide; seek good¬ 
ness, so that they may help others to be good. 

For one day, may all mankind forget noise, turmoil, un¬ 
worthy ambitions and unworthy gains. For one day, may 
the disquiet of life be forgotten and may there be the peace 
of God, during which peace may the still, small voice be 
heard. 

Be with all who are sick, this day. Be with all who are 
away from home in sickness. May the day be one, if it 
be well, whence strength both of body and of mind be found. 

Be with all who are travelling, wheresoever they may be. 
May they realize that in our Father’s House are many man¬ 
sions, and wherever we may be we are in one of His rooms. 
May God be revealed to them through the sights they see 
and the experiences through which they pass. Be with all 
persons. May, some way, the grandeur of goodness sup¬ 
plant the temporary gain of evil. Be with all who write 
for the press, or influence opinion in any way. So that 
every soul to-day, for a time, may be in God’s Sanc¬ 
tuary, and every son of God touch the hand of the Father. 
May the young see visions, may the old dream dreams, and 
may all approach nearer than ever before the gates of the 
Holy City. Amen. 

As you noticed, I read for the Scripture Lesson the 
account of David’s inability to build the Temple, and the 
call of the son to attempt that work. 

We have in this chapter a little interesting side view 
of the value of Biblical Criticism. We all know that in 
the earlier Books of the Bible very often we read that the 


THWARTED AMBITION 


105 


Hebrews thought that God intended wholesale slaughter. 
We hear—or we read—where they taught that they were 
commanded to kill every man, woman, and child in Pales¬ 
tine. And you remember the story how Saul was com¬ 
manded to kill and how he was degraded because he failed 
to be obedient to that command. Now we find in this 
chapter a contradiction to all those stories. The very 
qualities which the earlier Books imposed upon the 
heroes—those very qualities are here held in such thought 
and such esteem that they are a disqualification. Here 
we find a contradiction of all the old spirit. Instead of 
a Saul who is told to kill we have a David who is dis¬ 
qualified from building because he has killed. Instead 
of being told to slaughter all the inhabitants of Judah, 
here we have a punishment because a man has slaughtered. 
There is a different spirit altogether. The earlier com¬ 
mands were written probably five, six, and seven centuries 
b. c. The Book of Chronicles is a review of the old 
history, a review written or made about 300 b. c., 
a review probably made by the priests, a review that 
for many years was left out of the Canon altogether, 
because the old Hebrews said, “What is the good of it, 
we have it all somewhere else, why put in a repetition of 
history ?” And, as you remember, the Book was torn in 
two. Second Chronicles was put in the old Canon, 
First Chronicles was left out. And it is rather inter¬ 
esting—the closing words of the last chapter of Chroni¬ 
cles and the opening words of the first chapter of Ezra 
are alike. The reason being that this revision of history 
was torn in two, for Ezra used to be part of Chronicles; 


io6 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


and the old Hebrew Bible ends in the middle of a sentence 
because of that. If you could read Hebrew, and should 
pick up the old Hebrew Bible, you would find the last 
words of the last chapter like the declaration of Ezra. 
“Let him go up.” It stops there. The old Hebrew 
Bible ends in the middle of a sentence, because of that 
tearing of the old manuscript in two. 

Here we have the old manuscript written about 300, 
three hundred years later than the older ones which con¬ 
tain the commands to slaughter. During that three 
hundred years there has been a progress, there has been 
a change of opinion, just as we are different from those 
who came over in the Mayflower, just as they were dif¬ 
ferent from those who lived in England, in, say, 1200 or 
1300. The centuries bring a change of thought. Here 
we find just the things that were once ordered condemned. 
The priests in 300 had a new ideal of life, different from 
the writers who wrote Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and so 
on. The old writers said, “kill.” The new writers said, 
“Well, if you do, you will somehow stain your hands.” 
You see how things progress. We change, we grow. 

This morning, I want to take that change of opinion 
and speak of it as an example of what happens in life 
very often. 

David—of course, we do not have his real history, we 
have only his idealized history—David was apparently a 
typically successful warrior, a man with many attractive 
qualities and with many failings. His life was success¬ 
ful. And then, as with all the great warriors, when he 
settled down, after his days of warfare he determined to 


THWARTED AMBITION 


107 

build. Great warriors in the past generally tried in the 
end to be great builders. When you travel about in 
Rome you see on all sides monuments of the great war¬ 
riors. They first did their fighting and then they tried 
to commemorate their lives by architecture. And so 
David determined, after this fighting, to settle down and 
build, and to build especially a great Temple. Again, a 
very common ambition—to build a great Temple, - that 
would not only speak of God and through God, but also 
honor those who built it. And the priests, with their 
new ideas of life, said, “No, to build a Temple requires a 
man of purity, a man of clean hands.” And so David 
somehow felt that he could not be the builder, and his de¬ 
sire to make a great Temple had to lapse. What he 
longed for he could not have, what he desired to do, he 
could not accomplish. There was in his life, at the end, 
a thwarted ambition. 

And I want to ask you to think over, to-day, how in 
our lives we have that same experience, how we all en¬ 
counter thwarted ambitions. 

And these come from two reasons, as far as I can see, 
from two great causes. One set of causes is from out¬ 
side of us. I suppose the older ones who are here rather 
like to listen to young men talking. Young men always 
begin by telling of what they are going to do. And they 
generally speak very emphatically. “We will do so and 
so.” And that is the' attraction of youth. That is 
where they beat us older folks. They will do it. And 
then by and by the years come, and when they get, say, 
over forty, they begin to say, “We will do it, if—pro- 


io8 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


vided—” When they get over fifty or sixty, they say, 
“Well, we will do it—if we can.” Haven't you noticed 
that? The difference between, say, thirty, forty, and 
fifty? At twenty or thirty we are going to do; at forty 
we will if—at fifty we will—provided—if we can. 
Our life narrows down. We recognize that there are 
certain things that are possible—certain things that are 
improbable. This, of course, comes from, again, a 
various set of circumstances with which we recognize 
later that we are confronted. Our birth has a good deal 
to do with what we will do, our environment has a good 
deal to do with it, our opportunities have a good deal to 
do with it. Our circumstances have a good deal to do 
with us. Our what we might call chances have a good 
deal to do with us. I remember, when we were in college, 
one year the young students would find places directly; 
there happened to be many churches. Another year the 
students would not find churches, because there happened 
to be none vacant. The causes were quite outside of the 
students, depending on circumstances. And so we say 
our life depends very largely on our circumstances, our 
chances, our environment, our birth, our physical health. 
There are numberless things around us that shape what 
we are able to do. And by and by they so control, that 
things that we would do, we cannot. The house, or 
Temple, that we would build is an impossibility. 

Is it not so with us all? It may be that a few of us do 
what we intended to do, but I dare say there are not 
three people in this Church this morning who have ac- 


THWARTED AMBITION 


109 


complished all they set out to do. If I had accomplished 
all I wished to do when I was young, there would not be 
an empty pew in the Church this morning. I dreamed 
of filling every church I entered. It has not come to 
pass. And I suppose there are not three people in the 
Church this morning who have built the house that they 
designed to build. Outside circumstances have shaped 
a good deal of their lives. 

Then there are other circumstances which are inward. 
We do, of course, in part as we are able to do, and we 
are able to do as we create in part our ability. The young 
man enters the university. He does not spend as much 
time as he might in study. He gets through the first 
year, he perhaps gets through the second year, but by 
and by he begins to feel that he has not the knowledge 
and the ability of some of his companions, and by and 
by there comes a time when it is recognized that he is 
second to many. He has brought it on himself. It is 
so all through. We create our abilities, we make our 
characters. And then when the ability is created and the 
character formed, then comes the judgment: we are not 
able to do what we intended to do. 

This is true in spiritual things just as much as in tem¬ 
poral things. Every habit, every thought, every purpose 
shapes our lives. Everything we do has an effect, and 
when our inner life has formed, our outer life then gives 
the final judgment: I am not able—I cannot do what I 
wanted to do, or I am not clean enough in heart, I am 
not pure enough to see God. I cannot build as I hoped 
to build, because I have misshaped my life. 


no 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


Is not that so ? There comes a time with us all 
when from outward and inward reasons ambitions are 
killed. 

But now I want to speak—and this is really why I 
have taken the subject; I want to speak about the test. 

When these impossibilities become known, when you 
and I have a thwarted ambition, what then ? How do we 
take it ? When we find that we cannot do what we should 
like to do, what then? When we find that our dreams 
are impossibilities? When we find that the canvas we 
would paint we are not able so to paint? When we find 
that what we want to accomplish we cannot, what then? 
Then comes the test of life. Then we stand at the divid¬ 
ing of the two roads. Then either we become a failure 
or we become a success. 

When I find that my life is narrow, confined, limited, 
what then ? When I cannot find the best, and have to be 
content with the second-best ? When I cannot be first and 
find that I can only, perhaps, be the fifth or sixth, what 
then? When I find others far ahead of me and I know 
that I cannot reach them, what then? When I find that 
I cannot build God’s House, what then? 

Then comes the test. There are two ways open to us. 
One way is that we become dispirited, we become sour, 
we become cynical. We say we haven’t got our deserts, 
that So and So has got far more than his deserts, 
that life is not fair, that competition is not a good guide, 
that the best men often are the failures apparently, and 
that the men who seem to get on are not worthy of it. 
We begin to be cynical, we begin to judge, and we con- 


THWARTED AMBITION 


in 


demn the world all around, and we go into ourselves, and 
give up any real life. 

How many of us do that? How many are doing it to¬ 
day, in Boston? You talk to them, and they will tell you 
immediately, “Oh, life is all right, but you know it is not 
fair, it is not just, men are not what they seem to be, 
the best are passed by, the second-best are chosen; the 
real books are not read, the ephemeral books are the popu¬ 
lar ones.” And so the judgment goes. It may be true. 
But a man that becomes sour and cynical is done for. 

I cannot find all I wish, I cannot do all I should like, 
but what I can do I will do. What I can accomplish 
I will accomplish. If I have to be content with the 
second-best, I will do my part in that second-best. If I 
cannot be a leading minister of a church, I will be a 
minister of a secondary church. If I cannot be fore¬ 
man, I will be a workman. If I cannot be chief, I will be 
a follower. 

I wonder sometimes—I think that we in America, be¬ 
ing such a young country, are forgetting this quality. 
We don’t like the patient, steady plodding, we don’t like 
the quiet going-on, we don’t like the days that are gray, 
and that simple record, that grim determination. We 
like to do things in a rush. We like spectacular move¬ 
ments. We like noise, we like combinations and figures. 
And, friends, they all mean nothing. Most of us are 
only second-best, and our work is to go on quietly. 
What tells in the end is dogged, unseen persistence. 
What tells in church life and in all life is quietly con¬ 
tinuing our unseen tasks. 



112 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


Of course, it may be that we are a young country, and 
that we are in the stage of the young man who says, “I 
will do it.” But we shall find that all that counts is what 
is done quietly, that nobody ever sees. And what counts 
in character is not what is spectacular, but what is 
steady, hidden and secret. You and I—some of us, have 
got beyond the stage of ready confidence. We have 
learned what we cannot do. Some of us will reach it 
by and by. In whichever stage we happen to be, the 
only thing to do is to say, “I will go quietly on, if nobody 
sees, it doesn’t matter, if nobody praises, it doesn’t 
matter. I will quietly, persistently, steadily do my work, 
and if I do not succeed in the world’s eye, I will succeed 
in my own by being faithful and true.” And such work 
never fails. No man who plods steadily and faithfully 
on fails in the end. 

I want now to turn to the story again. David, ap¬ 
parently, failed, but he had prepared so that his son 
could do the work. There is not any one of us who will 
see America as we should like to see it. None of us will 
see the Holy City. None of us will ever gain the world 
we should like to have. But we can prepare others. I 
sometimes, as you often, no doubt, do, try to think of 
what Jesus felt like in the last few days of his life. I 
wonder if ever a man lived who did less. I wonder if 
ever a man lived who seemed to fail so completely. 
When he reached the end, what had he done? Suppose 
we try to measure up the accomplishments of Jesus, what 
can we see? What had he done? He had not built a 


THWARTED AMBITION 113 

Church, he had not formed a community, he had not 
gathered any forces. He had not a single work to show 
for his three years of public ministry—if what we are 
told be true. I do not know any character in history 
that seemed to have done so little. You cannot tell me a 
single spectacular thing that he had done. If ever a man 
could have said, “I have failed,” if ever a leader could 
say, “I am no use, my years have been lost,” that man is 
Jesus. He certainly had not built the house that he in¬ 
tended. But—but, there was in four or five men a 
dream. Four or five humble and impetuous fishermen 
had somehow a disquieting dream. They went back to 
fish, but they could not continue fishing because of that 
dream. Apparently all that Jesus had done was to put 
that dream in four or five fishermen and one or two 
women. He built there and nowhere else. And then 
that dream brought the men back to Palestine and to 
service. Jesus failed outwardly, he succeeded inwardly 
marvellously, and I think somehow that that is what you 
and I have to do. We may fail lamentably outwardly. 
I don’t suppose any one of you is quite the character you 
intended to be. I suppose you all feel, when you are 
really in earnest with yourself, that you have failed, but 
what we have got to do is so to live, so to serve, that we 
create, at least in our children, or at least in those who 
notice us, a dream. If I have left in my children a dream 
of goodness and duty, if you have left in your children 
an ideal of duty and of goodness, you have given some¬ 
thing that by and by will shape the world. 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


114 

There is no failure for goodness, there is no failure for 
the quiet dream. We may not do what we intend, but 
others will. It is a slow march. It is a slow way. 

I have been reading during the week copies of Utopias 
that I could find. I have been reading the old literature 
where I could find it, from 1500 to 1600 and 1700, and 
I have been astonished to find how in that old literature 
* we have just the things that we are saying to-day. 

I heard, the other day, one of our leading lawyers speak 
on our present system of prisons, and it was like a new 
dream. Yesterday, I took up the “Vicar of Wakefield,” 
written as you know, in the seventeenth century, and I 
read of the old Vicar who was there in prison for debt. 
I read what he said about the prison, and he said, nearly 
two hundred and fifty years ago, just what the lawyer 
was saying to-day. We have not advanced, apparently, 
very greatly above what Oliver Goldsmith said as regards 
prisons, two hundred and fifty years ago. It is slow 
work, but there is some progress. The prisons to-day 
are not quite what they were in Goldsmith’s time. We 
have gone forward. The prisons to-day are not quite 
what they were, say, in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen¬ 
turies ; they are better, though they are not to-day as we 
would have them. 

We may fail, and a voice may say, as it said to David, 
“Thou shalt not build,” but our sons will build, if we 
give them the ideal. 

God help us when we find we are only second-rate to 
be second-rate splendidly, and to have such a spiritual 
touch with God that all who follow are closer to the Al- 


THWARTED AMBITION 


US 

mighty. I do not mind if I do fail, if I inspire a few 
good thoughts that by and by will bring forth fruit. 
Never mind if you do fail, if you have said and done 
some things that by and by will bring forth their har¬ 
vest. What matter if I do not sing the song, if I inspire 
others to sing it? What matter if I cannot carve the 
statue, if I make others able so to do? What matter if 
I cannot paint a beautiful picture, if I make others 
see the beautiful? What matter if I sin, if in my repen¬ 
tance I make others hate sin a little more ? 

We do not fail, if we do our duty. God help us so to 
do. 

Let us join in prayer. 

Help us, Father, to take up life’s task, to do it faithfully, 
to do it in the unseen. 

Help us, day by day, to be as we know we should be 
in God’s sight. Amen. 


EVIL, SUFFERING, THE TRUE CON¬ 
CEPTION OF SALVATION 

Eternal Light, be Thou our light this morning. Eternal 
Wisdom, may we learn of Thy ways to-day. Great Father, 
may our souls feel Thy touch. Great Leader, may we be 
led of Thee. 

So often are we perplexed, so often do we stand and peer 
into the future, wonderingly, hesitatingly. So little do we 
know. Be with us. 

And may we to-day learn fresh lessons of God and feel 
a new touch with the Father. May we see to-day new 
visions. May we understand better to-day what life means 
and what our perplexities and difficulties mean. Listen to 
each one in the silent prayers that are arising. Since men 
have begun to think and pray they have thought and prayed 
much as we are doing to-day, humbly seeking and earnestly 
desiring the best things. 

May we all be led of God. Mav the human means be but 
instruments that lead to God and by the help of which God 
mav be better understood. 

Be in each life, and be in each home represented here. 
Listen to the pravers of all who bring their home cares and 
worries, listen to all who bring their business anxieties, and 
mav one and all alike breathe the air of the Heights, see the 
visions of the Heights, and go back home strengthened and 
reinspired. 

In everv sanctuary may weary ones find rest, mav seek¬ 
ing ones find help, mav sinning ones find guidance. Mav 
everv sanctuarv to-day be truly the meeting place of the Di¬ 
vine and Holv. 

Be with all who are assembling to-dav for anv form of 
thought or work. Be with all who are not thinking of the 
better things. Let Thy presence somehow be made known 

it6 


TRUE CONCEPTION OF SALVATION 117 


to those who are satisfied, to those who are contented, to 
those who living in the valley have never thought of climb¬ 
ing the hills. Be with them this day, and may there, per¬ 
haps, come a whisper of discontent and dissatisfaction. 

Be with the rulers of the nations, this day. May they be 
guided by Thy inspiration. May they be willing to be 
guided by Thy Spirit. And for one day may they feel that 
it matters not what material gain be theirs if the spiritual 
gain be not theirs also. 

Be with all people. Be with those who are travelling— 
those far from home and probably casting thoughts home¬ 
ward now. 

May mankind everywhere place the human hand in the 
Great Divine hand, and so may earth and Heaven be linked 
with the golden bonds of prayer. And when night comes 
may we lie down to sleep conscious that we are being blessed 
by the Father, and ready to meet afresh the demands that 
are ever made upon us. Amen. 

My subject this morning is Sin, Suffering, and Sal¬ 
vation; as you will recognize, a very difficult subject on 
which to try to speak. 

I sometimes see in imagination a number of old war¬ 
riors gathered around a campfire. They have passed 
through a day of strenuous fighting and glorious victorv, 
and when night has come they are gathered around the 
fire, in a great forest. The pines around are dark with 
just the tips lit with the glow of the fire. The warriors 
sit and watch the blaze and the sparks, and then, by and 
by, begin to talk over their problems. They have known 
unfaithfulness, treachery, and suffering, and they begin 
to talk one with the other as to why there is this treachery, 
why some men are foul and dishonest and cowardly, and 
why it is that so often mankind is made to suffer. By 


n8 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


and by one tells an old legend in which he tries to explain 
the problem. He says that away back in the old days 
there was a beautiful grove, and in this grove some won¬ 
drous fruit amongst which were apples to eat which 
meant there would be no sickness and no pain. A woman 
watched these apples. Then he goes on to tell them how 
she was, one day, enticed out of the grove and could not 
watch them, and that when she returned from her ab¬ 
sence sickness and age had begun to creep on, and sor¬ 
rows were known. You all know that old Norse legend 
of I dun and the Apples. It is a childish story, but it is 
tragic. No one knows when it was composed, but it 
never would have seen the light had men not known what 
we call sin and suffering. Similar legends, we know, 
arose with the Greeks. You all know the story of Pan¬ 
dora and her curiosity. Then you all know the story 
of the Persian Ahriman, the God of Evil, and Ormuzd, 
the God of the Good, fighting it out. You all know the 
story of Genesis. Again the story of an apple. I 
imagine all the old legends were simply talked of around 
the campfires; and I know they were all men who talked 
it over, because in every case they put the blame on a 
woman: if she had been present, they would have said 
less about her. 

All these old legends are tragic although amusing; and 
they show that the world over men have had this problem 
to fight. I read you how Habakkuk, one of the early 
preachers of Israel, felt the same problem and cried out, 
“How long?” And, to-day, I want to try to give what 


TRUE CONCEPTION OF SALVATION 119 

we say in regard to the problem guided by our somewhat 
enlarged knowledge. 

First, the problem of Sin. In our time, life is very 
different from that of the older thinkers. Most older 
thinkers place the Golden Age in the past. We place it in 
the future. In all the legends the Golden Age was in the 
past, and by some mere chance man had fallen from it. 
With our beliefs concerning growth we say the Golden 
Age is in the future, that the past was darker even than 
the present or, at least, more simple. We are moving 
on, we say, to a fuller life, a life we often compare to the 
climbing of a mountain. We start at the foothill. We 
climb the first height, and then we see ahead of us a 
deep canon and we begin to go down. Then we come 
across an unscalable precipice and we go down, and after 
hours of toil we are no higher than when we started, but 
we are nearer the goal. And life is like that. Men 
started out, they have climbed at times and added to their 
height, soon they have to go down into a canon. Then 
there are all around difficulties, and after long labor the 
climbers are no higher than when they started, at least, 
in perpendicular feet, but they are nearer their goal: they 
are so much nearer the summit. 

Life is like that. Some days we make an ascent and 
some days a descent. During some eras men climb in 
belief, and then in following eras they have to descend 
into the valley ahead, and they look back and find that 
they are no further from the depth than they were 
at the beginning. But this climbing, and this jour- 


120 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


neying means, of course, a leaving behind. There is no 
going forward without a leaving behind. The pioneer 
sees new sites, but he has to leave old sites behind. He 
finds a new position, but he has to give up an old one in 
order to gain it. 

In all this there is a suggestion as to the meaning of 
sin. We are climbing higher and every step upwards 
means a relinquishment of something below and we don’t 
like the giving up. Nobody likes to give up. We like 
to gain the heights, but, somehow, we are reluctant to 
leave the depths. Every new attainment means an older 
sacrifice. And so when a new plan is made in life the old 
plan is felt at the same time. When a new virtue is pre¬ 
sented to our view an old virtue puts in its word. And 
have you ever noticed that practically all—I will say 
practically all—our sins were not once sinful? Probably 
most of our sins were once virtues. At any rate, the sug¬ 
gestion that made the new virtue is the same suggestion 
that made the old sin. Take selfishness, one of the worst 
vices of to-day. It was once necessary. The savage 
had to look after himself, or else he would have died. 
Take murder or robbery. At one time the savage had to 
kill, or else he would have been killed. Take sensuous 
desires. At one time men had to increase by almost any 
means, or else the tribe would have been wiped out. Our 
sins of to-day were probably once virtues. But when we 
see a higher plane, the old-time necessity is outgrown. 
A man to-day who is selfish is altogether different from 
the man who was selfish ages ago. The man who- is 



TRUE CONCEPTION OF SALVATION 121 


selfish to-day we call sinful. He has not risen with the 
rising tide of movement. 

Our sins are our choice of what we once loved and at 
the same time a refusal to gain a higher plane. A sin 
is loving the lower when we see a higher; a clinging to 
the imperfect when we see a more perfect. 

But now let me very briefly speak of the effect of sin. 
I have heard, many a time, old-time preachers speak won- 
drously eloquently of the power of sinfulness. I think 
that our new view may seem more frightful still. If the 
old theologian could make his hearer tremble at the 
thought of sin, I think the present-day scientist could do 
it even more effectually. Every time we choose a lower, 
or every time we refuse a higher, we have made a choice, 
or a refusal, that mars not only our life but every life with 
which we come in contact. Every time I refuse to climb 
upwards I necessarily go downwards. Every time I re¬ 
fuse to reach the heights I necessarily tie myself down to 
the depths, and by and by I lose the power to climb, and 
am—simply less than human. And with my loss comes 
the loss of all around me. No man “liveth to himself, 
and no man dieth to himself.” If it were not so, I think 
we could sometimes say something for sin. I think 
sometimes we might be tempted to say, “Well, shan’t I do 
what I like with mine own ? It is my own body, shan’t I 
use it as I like? It is my own life, shan’t I use it as 
I like ?” But we can’t say that, because others suffer with 
us. If I am degraded, my friends suffer. If I make an 
evil choice, my companions suffer. If the peoples of the 


122 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


land choose the lower, the land dies. Every time the 
lower is preferred the soul—shall we say it—dies. The 
soul that sinneth, that is, the soul that loves the lower, 
that soul shall die. If only one could paint this picture 
so dark that the real significance of sin could be seen; 
but we cannot do so, for sin is past description in its 
fearfulness. 

Now I want to speak of suffering. I speak with hesi¬ 
tation of suffering, because when we are undergoing 
suffering and pain it almost seems callous to speak about 
it. But let us, for a time, put that hesitation on one side 
and think somewhat of the meaning and the source of 
suffering. In the first place, much of suffering—no one 
can say how much, but much of suffering comes from sin. 
Bearing in mind my past statement, if we choose the 
lower, we choose that which by and by infers suffering. 
The moment we make a choice of the lower, at that mo¬ 
ment the clouds begin to gather around the horizon and 
by and by the storm breaks in all its fury. If we could 
cancel the amount of suffering that has been caused 
directly and indirectly by sinning and sinful choice, the 
world would smile much more brightly to-day than it 
does. We all know that much of our suffering is caused 
by our preference of the lower when we see the higher. 

And then, again, suffering comes from the decay of the 
material. The spirit, we take it, is eternal. The clothing 
of the spirit is simply material and is final. For a time, 
I take it, our spirit makes a lodgment in our body. That 
body of necessity decays and by and by passes. Let me 
take a single picture from our own Church here. This 


TRUE CONCEPTION OF SALVATION 123 

is the fifth building erected. Each building preceding it 
either proved too small or was destroyed. But the spirit 
continues, and is here, and so, I take it, in the eternal 
spirit we enter into differing bodies. The body passes, 
and whilst it is passing it must of necessity fade. Of 
course, as the days come and go, those who seek to learn 
find how to alleviate the suffering. But always will there 
be the suffering. 

And then suffering comes from the effect of circum¬ 
stances outside of our control, such as by accident, or by 
curious chance, shall we say, of circumstances. And all 
we can do, it seems, is to face the suffering. All we can 
do is to put a brave face to it. 

But there comes the deeper question that I have heard 
asked many a time, “Why are we so created ? Why is 
it?” Nobody knows. All I know is this, that whilst we 
are as we are, suffering is not a curse. Or, whilst we are 
as we are, suffering helps as much as it injures, if not 
more. I have read—and you have read, probably, a little 
book by Coulson Kernahan entitled “A Man of No Sor¬ 
rows,” and I am not anxious to see a world without sor¬ 
rows. If I had the power of some magician to send away 
suffering, I would not do it. I am not sure it would be 
well. Created as we are the grander phases of our 
character come by our suffering and our failures. Cre¬ 
ated as we are the best part of life has come because we 
have had to fight this suffering and this sorrowing. 

Now let me pass on to salvation. Not in the future. 
I am not going to speak about it in the future. The old 
conception was that salvation was being saved when this 


124 THE hills of god 

life had ended. I am not concerned with that phase of it 
at all. 

I believe that there is a Great Power behind. I believe 
that that power is as a father, and that he will meet us 
as a father would. And I leave Him like that. I am not 
concerned any further. I can honestly say I am never 
troubled about what is going to happen to me when my 
spirit and my body separate. I leave it with the Father. 
I know I do not lead the life I should like to lead, but I 
leave it. He knows why I have failed. He knows the 
cause of my failure. He knows what I have done that 
I have tried to do nobly. I leave it with Him. I am not 
concerned with salvation at the close of life. But I am 
concerned with salvation now. That is, salvation from 
something. I do want to try to be saved from something 
now. 

First, I want to be saved as much as possible from sin¬ 
ning, that is, from making evil the deeper choice. I am 
concerned in being saved from foolish mistakes. I am 
concerned in not being a failure day by day. And to that 
end, I try to commune with the best that I know. To 
that end, I try to imitate the best I know. And to that 
end, I try in my prayer, to be close to my Father. I try 
all I can to be saved from folly, mistakes, and vice. 
That is one of my phases of salvation. 

Then, as regards suffering and sorrow, I do not seek it, 
I do not want it. Nobody does. None of us want our 
difficulties. But I do not seek to be saved from them, 
for I want, by and by, to have a character that is noble 
and true. I want, by and by, to be the man of which I 


TRUE CONCEPTION OF SALVATION 125 

dream, and I know from experience that I shall be helped 
to that end by sorrowing and suffering and pain. It is 
not easy to say, and it is not easy to anticipate, but, at the 
same time, I am not going to ask to be saved from 
suffering. I should like to be, but whether it would be 
well or not is a different matter. 

Such, then, in my idea is salvation. It is to save from 
sinning, it is being saved now. 

Now I pass to the last phase of suffering and that is 
being saved from being overcome by suffering. It may 
be that we suffer so much that we lose out. Men have 
been lost, as it were, through the difficulties that they have 
had to face. I want to avoid that. I want to avoid be¬ 
ing overcome by my difficulties. I want, rather, when 
they come, to be brave and strong enough to fight them 
and to use them in such a way that I rise all the time. 
So I will say I want to be saved from sinning and I want 
to be saved from defeat in the face of suffering. Then, 
as I have said, if that happens, if, by and by, I come to 
make few foolish choices, if, by and by, I love the heights 
and hate the depths, and if, by and by, I am brave enough 
to meet any difficulty with a smiling face and with an 
upright mien, then, when the end comes—well, I will fall 
asleep and leave the rest with the Unknown. As 
Tennyson says, “I hope to see my Pilot face to face,” 
and whither the voyage will take me I do not know and 
I do not mind very much. 

God help you when you are face to face with the choice 
between the lower and the higher. If you love the lower, 
you sin. 


126 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


God help you when you are face to face with suffering. 
May you meet it, and all through be brave. 

And God help you day by day so that at the last you 
can say without any fear and without any immodesty, “I 
have fought a good fight, I have kept my faith.” 

Let us pray. 

“A charge to keep I have, 

A never dying soul to save.” 

Help me, my Father, to be true to my charge, and so 
to live that this soul shall ever grow in the beauty and gra¬ 
ciousness of holiness. 

Help us all day by day. Amen. 


THE PROBLEM OF DIVINE JUSTICE 

Our Father, we are thankful for this returned Sabbath, 
we are thankful for this season when we can have new 
thoughts, when standing in new positions we gain new views 
of life, when quietly on one side we may make new meas¬ 
urements and plan new purposes. 

Be with us all, as we thus solemnly and quietly seek Thee. 
Be with us as we are anxious to find more of the Divine 
ways and the Divine meaning in life. May our worship 
help us, and may we be altogether greater men and women, 
wiser, stronger, and purer because of joint communion with 
Thyself. 

Speak, Lord, and we, Thy servants, will try to listen and 
to understand. Amen. 

In the Second Letter to the Corinthians, chapter v, 
verse io, there occur these words, which I am reading 
from the Twentieth Century New Testament: “For at 
the bar of the Christ we must all be made to appear in 
our true characters, that each may receive the conse¬ 
quences of the life he has lived in the body, in accordance 
with his actions, whether good or worthless.”—“At the 
bar of the Christ we must all be made to appear—” 

Throughout literature, as long as literature has been in 
existence, we find questions concerning Divine Justice. 
We find writers in all ages asking if there be such a thing, 
for men have always had a longing for what you might 

call abstract justice. The foundation of all justice to- 

127 


128 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


ward mankind is a recognition of the distinction between 
right and wrong and an underlying faith that right must 
finally prevail. If we lost that faith, life would simply 
be chaos. There has always been a search for this tri¬ 
umph of Divine Justice. We find it away back in 
Homer. He declares through one of his characters, “If 
Agamemnon die, the doer of the deed must suffer.” The 
writer of that poem, whoever it was, felt that if a hero 
die by murder, life demands that the doer of the deed 
should suffer. 

Euripides, later, constantly expresses the same feeling 
and in the “Trojan Women” we find ever hanging over 
the evil doer an- impending punishment, but somehow the 
punishment does not fall, and so Hecuba makes a prayer 
to Zeus: “To thee I pray, if on me vengeance fall, all 
mortal things by justice thou dost guide.” We might 
almost repeat those words to-day, “All things by justice 
thou dost guide.” 

Then, a little later, we find Plato saying exactly the 
same thing. In his “Republic” he has a picture of a court 
of arrest, a Court of Life, as you might call it; and into 
that Court souls absolutely naked come, so that the Judge 
has no idea who, or what, the soul had been. And there, 
in absolute nakedness, the souls stand to receive the re¬ 
ward or the punishment that is due to them. 

Later, the Greeks stage the same picture, and the Book 
of Revelation with its eternal imagery is very largely 
built on the pictures. Evidently, the writer of that Book 
of Revelation knew Plato and knew much of that old 
Greek imagery. 


THE PROBLEM OF DIVINE JUSTICE 129 

All the time, Egypt was writing in the same way. 
Men felt in those old days that somewhere and somehow 
justice must be done. 

Later, the Christians took the same idea, and I suppose 
you all know that wonderful hymn, terrible, forbidding, 
but still sublime. I mean that “Dies Irae.” Let me quote 
one or two verses just to recall those other verses to your 
memory. 

“Day of wrath! O day of mourning! 

See fulfilled the prophets’ warning! 

Heaven and earth in ashes burning. 

Wondrous sound the trumpet flingeth, 

Through earth’s sepulchres it ringeth, 

All before the throne it bringeth. 

Death is struck, and nature quaking, 

All creation is awaking, 

To its Judge an answer making. 

When the Judge His seat attaineth, 

And each hidden deed arraigneth, 

Nothing unavenged remaineth.” 

And so on and on. The hymn is awful in its picture; 
terrible, but sublime. 

To those friends who are speaking to-day of the 
Second Coming, there is exactly the same feeling. Those 
who believe in the Second Coming believe, behind it all, 
in an abstract justice, and it seems as though justice were 
not, and so, they say, Jesus will come and bring it. 

All through history, all through life, behind all civi¬ 
lization, there is this feeling that somewhere there is a 


130 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


Divine Court of Justice, else life is a hopeless enigma. 

Let me pass on now to what we feel about this to-day. 
As I have said, the past has never been without these 
thoughts of justice, and the present is but as the past. 
And there is this particular thought behind it all—that our 
life here, our thoughts of justice, are ever becoming more 
noble. We are ever seeing, as it were, better thoughts of 
justice and trying to put them into action. Think, to¬ 
day, how different it is in many respects from the old 
days. I remember the time in my short life when the first 
person in our neighborhood in Yorkshire, who attempted 
co-operative ownership, was boycotted and made to pass 
through the criminal court. To-day, we are feeling that 
it is only right that those who work should have somehow 
some voice in the management of the labor that they give. 
We do not know yet quite how to put this feeling into 
real activity, but there is that feeling everywhere. Our 
idea of justice is somehow increasing as regards con¬ 
ditions of labor. 

Then, again, a writer said the other day—and the 
words quite struck me, “If Jesus had to be here to-day 
and had to give that picture which he gave of the paying 
of the wages”—you remember the picture in which he 
paid those who worked all day a sum, and those who 
worked an hour the same sum, and when, in the parable, 
the justice of the thing was attacked, Jesus is made to 
say, he makes the householder to say, “Shall I not do 
what I like with mine own?”—the writer says, “If Jesus 
had to come back to-day, he would not say that,” for, 
to-day, we say we have no right to do what we like with 


THE PROBLEM OF DIVINE JUSTICE 131 

our own. The right is limited, and we have, with our 
own, to consider how we touch on others. You see 
the ideal of justice is enlarged. The same with the 
soldier, old people, and needy ones, we more and more 
feel that they have to have greater and greater care. 

And one writer puts it, “When we think of good men 
and what they should do, when we think of Jesus and 
what he would have done, we turn around and say, ‘By 
all that God requires of me I know what God himself 
must be.’ ” We feel within a yearning for justice, we 
feel within a desire that things should be fair and right. 
And so says the old prophet—that every desire within 
tells me what God is like, and that He has inspired that 
longing for justice and, therefore, man must be just. 

But I think, in one respect, we are probably thinking 
less, to-day, of the imagery of the future than ever. We 
are thinking more and more, it seems to me, on this line. 
The “me,” or whatever it is—the soul—is shaped by its 
actions, and when that “me” passes on it will be 
what it has shaped itself to be. I think that is how we 
are thinking, more than, say, on the lines of that old 
“Dies Irae.” We feel that, day by day, we mould our 
soul, and that when the end of this pilgrimage has come 
that soul will move forward moulded as we have moulded 
it, and to the life that it is fitted to live. Probably that 
is the line on which our thought of Divine Justice will 
move. We sow, and we reap as we sow. We build, 
and we have what we have builded. We mould, and we 
have what is moulded. Ourself, our soul, goes on as we 
have shaped it. 



132 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


But I want now especially to speak of one side of 
Divine Justice that somehow seems always to have 
been overlooked. We need, it seems to me, not to em¬ 
phasize material reward, nor the immediate payment of 
spiritual merit. If we do good, material payment is not 
the destined nor the right award. We remember all 
through the Old Testament that material and spiritual 
things are mixed, and it is always felt that if a man were 
good he should be rewarded, and if Job were good he 
had no right to have Job’s sorrow. 

Should goodness be rewarded by material things? If 
it should, I am afraid that goodness will only be prudence, 
and will become wisdom rather than morality. Plato 
instanced the same thing, but that is the only instance I 
know in which there is a very clear line drawn between 
the type of life that the spirit should lead and the ma¬ 
terial rewards. If I do good, have I a right to expect to 
be paid for it; is that justice? If I am noble, should I 
expect success? If I live the best life I know, have I a 
right to the reward—to expect that I shall be happy ? Do 
the two things hang together? 

You remember when Wolfe was going up the stream 
before the Heights of Abraham it is said that he quoted— 
recited Gray’s “Elegy,” and said that he would rather be 
the author of that poem than the conqueror of Quebec. 
He became the conqueror of Quebec, he gained a soldier’s 
reward. The author of Gray’s “Elegy” gained a poet’s 
reward. Absolute justice. The soldier received the sol¬ 
dier’s reward, the poet received the poet’s award. 

Now is it not the same in people, all through life? 


THE PROBLEM OF DIVINE JUSTICE 133 

The spiritual man receives the spiritual award. The man 
of the world receives the worldly award. The shrewd 
man benefits by his shrewdness. The business man bene¬ 
fits by his business acuteness. But the good man, how 
does he benefit? Are we right when we say that good¬ 
ness should be rewarded materially? 

It seems to me that justice is done, if a man who is 
unselfish by his unselfishness becomes still more unselfish; 
that a man who is a spiritual seer, by exercising that 
quality becomes a still greater seer, for spirituality gains 
greater spirituality. That seems to me to be fair and 
right and just. 

“J. B.,” the English writer—I don’t know whether you 
know him or not, but very few men have ever written 
so clearly on spiritual topics; “J. B.” says in one of his 
sketches that there are three divisions in every event. 
There is what we think before the event happens; that is, 
how we look forward. There is what we do when the 
event is happening, when we are right in the midst of 
activity. And there is what we think of when it is over. 
And he says, if we have had a night of noise and thought¬ 
less jollity, when we look back on it we have one set of 
thoughts. But if we have done a noble deed and look 
back on it, we have another set of thoughts. “And when 
it is over,” said he, “is the best guide to what our deeds 
have been. When we are true and look back, we are 
proud of it; when we have been false and look back, we 
are ashamed of it.” There is justice. 

And isn’t it so with all life? When I have been false 
I gain as my reward a debased soul, when I have been 



T 34 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


true I gain as my reward a soul satisfaction. And I 
cannot help but think that we need to move more and 
more on those lines. When thinking of justice, think on 
those lines. 

If I choose to follow the Master, I do it because it is 
right to do it, because my soul tells me to do it, and not 
with any thought of what comes to me. If pain come, 
that is nothing to do with it. If want come, that is noth¬ 
ing to do with it. If dislike, that is nothing to do with it. 
I choose what I think is the noble path, no matter what 
be the reward. I have the reward, and nobody can take 
it from me—because I have chosen the best. 

You remember Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this 
world.” Friends, our rewards in the true life are not of 
the type of this world. Milton received for his “Paradise 
Lost” less money than probably nine-tenths of you will 
have coming into your home this next week. Supposing 
Milton had turned around and said, “There is no God, 
there is no justice, I have got only so many dollars for 
writing ‘Paradise Lost.’ ” Instead, Milton had the sat¬ 
isfaction that he had led thousands of souls nearer to 
truth. And that was his award. 

Jesus, when he had shown the grandest pictures of 
Divine life that the world has seen, when he had taught 
a few of his followers more inspiringly than any other 
teacher—when he had done that, and given his best, 
was dragged out of the Garden of Gethsemane, in the 
midst of a mob, without uttering a single word. Sup¬ 
posing Jesus had turned around and said, “There is no 


THE PROBLEM OF DIVINE JUSTICE 135 

such thing as justice!” He had his reward, and he 
has his reward to-day. Take the grandest figure in his¬ 
tory, and we do not compare that figure with Jesus. He 
had his reward and it was in the same type in which he 
paid his life. He gave his life to show his Father’s love, 
and he found that love; hence he got what he sought. 

I want to impress that on you more and more. If 
you wish to serve, serve—and you will gain your reward, 
but it won’t be material. If you wish to be a Christian, 
live a Christian life, but you won’t be rewarded by things 
you can touch and handle; they are on a different level. 
If you wish to see into the heights of God, look into the 
heights—but you won’t gain the lower by so doing. If 
you wish to talk with God, live with God, but men will 
not thank you for it; popular thanks are on a different 
level. 

We gain what we seek, we get what we long for. If 
I have given my life to serve, my reward is the serving, 
and I must be thankful for it and be contented with it. 
If you have given your life to serve mankind, in medicine, 
or in social service, or literature, your reward will be of 
the same kind. You will be doing good, and that, to me, 
is all that is needed. As we sow, we reap. 

But, of course, friends, when all is said and done, the 
award of the spiritual is infinitely greater than the re¬ 
ward of the material. Can you compare anything, can 
you parallel anything, with the Peace of God, which 
passeth all understanding? Do you know anything equal 
to it? If I could give you, to-day, that peace, I should 



THE HILLS OF GOD 


136 

give you the grandest thing in life. And that is the re- 
ward of the spiritual. 

Somehow—I may be wrong, but somehow I cannot 
help but feel that there is a Divine Justice when we look 
at life rightly. If we seek the spiritual, we find it; and 
we do not gain the other. If we wish for the other, we 
can have it; but we do not find the spiritual. 

Divine Justice, to me, is that what we yearn for we 
find; that as we seek, so we discover. And I would, 
friends, for I know of what I am speaking, I would that 
you should seek the best—the Peace of God, which pass- 
eth all understanding. 

Let us pray. 

Heavenly Father, give unto us the wisdom to seek for the 
best things. May we seek first, the Kingdom of the Spirit. 
And possessing inward blessings, thus may we be calm and 
strong whatever outer things come to us. Amen. 



THE INFALLIBILITIES OF LIFE 


Grant, Eternal Spirit, that on this day, that noisy, rushing 
world busy with its own affairs and anxious ever for its 
daily gains, may listen to the higher voices and to the nobler 
ways of life. Grant that for a day men and women may 
leave the low-lying valleys and make a few steps upward 
towards the heights. May every city, self-absorbed and 
ambitious, for to-day in part forget itself, and over its busy 
streets may there be a whisper of peace and of eternal love. 
And may the villages, this day, as they hear the sound of 
bells also hear the invitations of God in their hearts. And 
so throughout the length and breadth of this land may men 
and women see into the heights and hear their Father’s 
voice. 

And may every land be a land blessed. 

Be with the countries across the water, distracted and 
disturbed and anxious as they are. May it be that to-day 
they learn, “What shall it matter if ye gain the whole world 
and lose your souls?” 

To-day may the world take secondary position and so may 
the spiritual take the first place. 

Be with all who are travelling to-day. Be with all who 
are in sickness and pain. Be with all who are in prisons 
and in our hospitals. 

Somehow, over the world may there be a different life 
to-day. May men breathe a different atmosphere. May 
there be somehow a prophecy of the time for which we hope, 
when the whole world shall be one great family. 

And we pray for ourselves. We all have our separate 
lives, our separate problems, and our separate sins. May 
our morning’s worship help us so that our problems may 
be less distracting, so that our disappointments in life 

i37 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


138 

may be less keen, so that our ambitions may be more 
noble, and so that our imperfections may gradually become 
less. 

May our worship help us and may we go back to our 
homes feeling glad in our hearts that we have met together 
to worship and to seek. Amen. 

I want to ask you, this morning, to think over what 
there is infallible in life. Is there—or are there such 
things as infallibilities? We all know that life is a fight. 
In one of Hamlin Garland’s books there is a very pathetic 
picture of a private returning from the War in the South. 
He is pictured as slowly and painfully going back to his 
little farm. He is full of disease and weak and ill. And 
at last he reaches his little home. And Garland said, 
“His fight with the South is over, but his fight with life 
is only re-commencing.” We all stand in somewhat that 
position. Men have always felt it. And there are two 
sets of antagonists. Some of the fight is against foes 
or opponents that we know and that we know how to 
measure up and how to face. And some of the fight is 
against something that is intangible. We cannot quite 
tell what it is, and we cannot measure it up. Men have 
always felt this. Wherever you read history, ancient 
or modern, east or west, you find men fighting against 
this intangible something and trying to get some help 
from somewhere. Men have always been longing for 
and seeking some infallible help that shall stand at their 
side in this fight. Greek, Roman, Hebrew, Egyptian, 
Asiatic, Savage, Christian, all alike, have had their ways 
of seeking this something that they think ought to exist, 


THE INFALLIBILITIES OF LIFE 139 

that shall be for them a perfect help in this unforeseen 
fight. 

I want, mainly, only to speak of the Christian way of 
seeking help. The Roman Catholic priest in Manchester, 
with whom I was very friendly, used to be often saying 
to me, “Hanson, you know there are two things necessary, 
one is an all-powerful God and the other is an infallible 
representative of Him.” Of course, if we could unite 
those two, I suppose it would be all that were necessary, 
but we have never found them yet. We presuppose, we 
are obliged to take for granted some power behind. We 
cannot think of life without it. What about an infalli¬ 
ble explanation of that power, an explanation that is 
absolutely infallible and absolutely worthy? We have 
never found it yet. And it may be pessimistic, but I 
feel like saying that we never shall, either. 

There have been three claimants, however. There 
have been three claimants for this infallible position. 
The first claimant—and I am speaking of the Christian 
world, the first claimant has been the Church. If you 
read Church history right from the time of the Disciples, 
you find very gradually but very surely the power of the 
Church directed to Rome. It was only natural, too. 
Rome was the capital city. It was the head of the Gov¬ 
ernment practically, and it was natural that the little 
Church in Rome should also claim precedence. It 
claimed it and got it slowly and gradually. Then slowly 
and gradually it extended its power in Rome itself, 
and then when the Empire fell and the imperial power 
decayed in Rome the Church took its place. In the Mid- 


140 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


die Ages the greatest power in the world was undoubtedly 
the Church. Kings and emperors trembled before it. 
You remember the great monarch, Henry IV of Ger¬ 
many, who came to interview Hildebrand the Pope, who 
kept him waiting out in the cold until it was his pleasure 
to see him. And every nation was fearful of being 
placed under an interdict. Undoubtedly, in the Middle 
Ages the only power in the world was the Church. And 
it claimed to be the representative of God, the infallible 
representative of God, and if it had been, it almost looks 
as though all would have been well. But you also know 
your history—that the Church began to prove itself very 
far from infallible. It is one of the tragedies of life that 
I cannot explain, and I suppose you cannot, that we are 
always trying to form strong institutions and strong 
countries and directly we get them they begin to decay. 
I wonder if you could tell me of a single institution that 
has grown strong and has not then come to decay. The 
Church grew strong and then it began to go. You know 
the awful history of the Church, corrupt, sinful, purely 
materialistic. And by and by men said, “This, at any 
rate is not infallible, at any rate, the Church does not 
represent the best, at any rate, the Church does not 
represent God. And the first infallibility failed. 

Now comes the second. When half of Europe left the 
Church—I mean the Roman Catholic Church—they still 
felt, as men have always felt, there must be something yet 
infallible, we must have something to guide us in our 
lives. And they took then a second guide, this time the 
Bible. The reformers said, “The Bible is absolutely the 



THE INFALLIBILITIES OF LIFE 


141 


word of God, every single letter in it has been penned by 
His fingers, every saying in it is absolutely faultless. 
When we read it, it will save us. It is infallible.” 
That was the second claim that was made. And I do not 
know any picture more beautiful and at the same time 
more pathetic than to- see, as I have often seen, an old 
man nearly at the end of his life’s journey, with a candle 
for a light, with steel-rimmed spectacles to aid his fail¬ 
ing eyes, sitting there night after night stumblingly read¬ 
ing the Holy Book. It is one of the most beautiful 
pictures the world shows us. And so one almost feels 
sorry in that respect that the Bible is not what it was 
claimed to be. Very soon after the Reformation a new 
story began to be told about the Bible. Men began to 
say that it was a collection, that it was a compilation, and 
that, with all other human things, it had its errors. And 
I remember, even in my short life, the great shock that 
was felt when the older folks learned that there were mis¬ 
takes in the Bible. Now we know it. It is no longer 
used to clinch arguments, a text is no longer a completely 
refuted argument. Now, the Bible is a story, a history, 
with its mistakes and its beauties, with its errors and its 
truths. It is like a path over the hills, at times dreary, 
but at times entrancingly beautiful. But it is not in¬ 
fallible. And so the second infallibility has gone. 

Then there came the third of which I speak with a good 
deal of hesitation. People said, and say yet, “It is all 
right for scholars to trouble with the Old Testament; do 
as you like about that, find out all you can about that— 
the Old Testament, but do be very careful about the 


142 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


New.” And then they went on to say further, “If you 
really must, you can dissect the Epistles and the writings 
like the Apostles’ writings, but leave the Gospels alone, 
because they hold the story of Jesus.” Now, a great 
many hold to the position to-day, but, alas, that is not 
the final position. You are obliged to learn all you can 
about the Gospels just as much as you are about Genesis, 
and then when you begin to learn about the Gospels you 
begin to be shocked, and you begin to wonder about the 
position of Jesus. Undoubtedly, as you know, the Gos¬ 
pels were written from memory and in the form we have 
them at least seventy years after Jesus, and one of them 
was undoubtedly written very much later still—un¬ 
doubtedly they are colored by the men who wrote them. 
They cannot help it. If I wrote a story, and if you wrote 
a story, about the same occurrence, they would be very 
different. You would write your style, I should write my 
own style. And so in the Gospels. They are in the 
style of Mark, the style of Matthew, the style of Luke. 
And then going further, there are some sayings that we 
are not sure about. Let me quote one or two. Jesus 
said to the Disciples when he sent them out preaching, 
“Before you have gone over Palestine the end will have 
come.” Those are not the exact words, but they are the 
exact meaning. What was meant by that? Was that a 
saying of Jesus, or was it something read into it uncon¬ 
sciously by the writer from memory ? It is not a question 
of deceit, of course. It is simply a question of uncon¬ 
sciously writing that which one’s self believes. Now, if 
Jesus said that, he was wrong. If he didn’t say it, well, 


THE INFALLIBILITIES OF LIFE 


143 


what other sayings are there that he didn’t utter? So 
you see where we stand. Take the saying about the pos¬ 
session by the devil. Undoubtedly Jesus believed, for the 
saying is put into his mouth—that a form of insanity was 
simply a possession by a devil. We don’t believe that to¬ 
day. Did Jesus believe it, or did the people write 
that he did? Not desiring to deceive, but simply reading 
themselves into the narrative. Now, you see we come 
across in the Gospels uncertainties right in the words of 
Jesus himself, and either Jesus was mistaken or else those 
who wrote it were mistaken. There is no way out but 
one of the two. Now, supposing Jesus were mistaken— 
we are facing this quite openly, because we all have to face 
it, he is no longer infallible. And the third infallibility 
has gone. “Ah,” but you might say, “you must not say 
that.” I know the feeling, because I have it myself. 
But let us remember this, friends, let us divest our minds 
of a little unconscious hypocrisy. How many, what 
orthodox people, would follow the teaching of Jesus 
right straight down? How many do? When the War 
was on if you had taken the words of Jesus, what 
would have happened? You would have been called a 
pacifist, and you would have had a chance, if you had 
said much about it, of being sent to jail. We do not 
believe what he said about pacifism. What about pov¬ 
erty? When he said to his preachers, “When you go 
out to preach, take neither scrip nor staff”—neither 
money nor clothing. “Go out just as you are, and 
preach.” I do not do it. I am paid for my position. 
And the most orthodox preacher in Boston, I do not care 


144 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


who he is, does not do it, it is an impossibility. I have 
got to live. We do not accept the teaching of Jesus, after 
all, literally. Strange! We begin to make excuses. We 
say, “Yes, that was all right in his day.” Well, if you 
take that position, and limit the truths of Jesus by time, 
do not find fault if we limit his truths also. I remember 
very well how it was once horrible to speak as I am speak¬ 
ing now, and one man took me very severely to task. 
When criticising me very severely his little boy came in 
crying. “What is the matter?” “So and So has been 
hitting me.” Said his father, “Didn’t you hit him back?” 
I said, “Wait a bit, wait a bit, you are criticising me be¬ 
cause I do not accept the teaching of Jesus literally. 
Jesus said, If a man strike, turn the other cheek. Did 
you tell your little boy to do the same thing?” Uncon¬ 
sciously we do not believe so, and, friends, we have got 
to come to the conclusion that the infallibility of Jesus 
has gone, as we once understood it. 

Now we come to the crux of the whole matter. What 
have we to do then? If the Church is no infallible 
guide, if the Bible be not infallible, and if we have no 
infallible record of Jesus, where do we stand? Now let 
us look at our position. We are here, all mankind is here 
only a short time. The record of man’s story is only 
a moment compared with the story of the universe. It is 
impossible that we should know all about God. Nobody 
does. It is an absolute impossibility. There is no in¬ 
fallible knowledge of him, and I do not think there ever 
will be. But there are helps. We all believe that the 
story of life is an onward move, ever onward, higher 


THE INFALLIBILITIES OF LIFE 


145 


and still higher. It is a gradual climb, and on the way 
up there are helps. But, friends, there is no magical way 
of climbing the hills of God. If you want to climb Mt. 
Pisgah, you have got to do it on foot, and there is no 
other way. And you will stumble hundreds of times. 
You will fall hundreds of times. You will be mistaken 
often. But if you are a true man or a true woman, you 
will gradually get a little higher, and as you try to climb 
you begin to learn a few comparative infallibilities—just 
a few you will begin to learn. You will begin to learn 
this, that it is better to listen to the higher voices than 
the low ones. You will hear, all your life, two sets of 
voices. One says, in the secret of your life, “Do this. 
Do that.” Another will say, “No. No. Do this.” 
And you will know in your own secret heart that one set 
of voices is higher, the other lower. And what one says, 
all your life, is this—“I ought to listen to the higher.” 
That is never shaken. When two ways open to me, “I 
ought”—that is always inside of me—“I ought to take 
the higher.” And then as I try to do it I shall find help, 
as I have said, along the way, and I shall come back to the 
very things I have been criticising although in a sympa¬ 
thetic way. The Church will be a help, not an infallible 
help, but a help. The truest things in the Church live. 
Our worship here lives, and that is a help. In our up¬ 
ward fight the Church helps. And in an upward fight 
the Bible helps. No book helps so much. And so our 
old friends, when they understand the position, will just 
read the old Book as lovingly as they ever did. The 
Bible helps. And Jesus helps. Do I love him any less 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


146 

because I know he had the limitations of the first century ? 
Do I love him any less, or rather his way—do I love his 
way any less because he believed that the sun went down 
behind the world, as everybody believed? I love his 
way because it appeals to me. It is the way of life. 
Jesus helps. And all great lives help. There are helps 
all along, but none absolutely infallible. 

Friends, I am not going to make life easy. I know it 
isn’t. And I know that there is no mystical way of mak¬ 
ing it easy. All I know is, that I am not the man I should 
like to be, but I also know the ideal man that I should 
like to be, and I have got to foot it between the two, there 
is no magical connection. All I can do is to try, try hon¬ 
estly, use the helps that have been given, and gradually I 
shall gain a little, if I never do get to the stature that I 
wish for. I shall grow a little. Never mind infallibility. 
When in my first church a young man came to me and 
said, ‘'Mr. Hanson, if you would only tell us in your ser¬ 
mons just what to do, we should know where we were.” 
You see he wanted an infallibility—all I could say was, 
“I believe I am God’s son and like the rest of God’s uni¬ 
verse I am moving upwards. But I have got to move. 
If somebody could do it for me, I should only be a sec¬ 
ondary. If I do it myself, I am all the better man 
for it.” 

We are climbing God’s hills. There are guides to help 
us, but we have got to climb ourselves. 

It is said, once, when Whymper was an old man, he 
stood looking at the Matterhorn. He was absolutely 
silent. By and by after a long time he turned and went 


THE INFALLIBILITIES OF LIFE 


147 


home still silently. What was going on, I wonder, in 
his mind? He was the first man who climbed the Mat¬ 
terhorn, and I can imagine, as he was old he was re¬ 
viewing that climb. I think there were eight of them 
who started to climb. Six of them were killed. I can 
imagine the old man was recalling that terrible fight. 1 
wonder if it is not the same in life. When we get a little 
older we look back and recall our fight with life. If we 
have fought a good fight, it is an unfailing satisfaction 
and we go back home ready for the last change. “I have 
fought a good fight, I have kept my faith.” Faith will 
go with us all. We do not need, after all, infallibilities. 
All we need is a belief in the Great Eternal and a belief 
that we are His children. Leave the infallibilities, and 
be men and women of faith. 

Let us pray. 

Heavenly Father, we are thankful that we are sent here to 
blaze the path of men and women, that we are sent here to 
fight a fight and to win out. Be Thou ever on our side, in¬ 
spiring by that still, small voice of conscience, and may we 
ever try to listen to the higher, to despise the lower, to look 
upwards and shun downward paths. And so may we 
gradually but certainly become as we should like to be. 
Amen. 


BEING RICH AND HAVING NOTHING 


Our Heavenly Father, help us now to spend an hour in 
Thy real presence. 

Help us to inquire, feeling that the Spirit will answer. 
Help us to worship so that the hour may help us to be the 
men and women that we should like to be. Help us so that 
the hour may lift our lives on to a higher level, so that we 
may more truthfully walk with God. Sanctify each act of 
our service, so that no flitting thought and no unworthy mo¬ 
tive may disturb the quiet worship of our souls. Amen. 

Let us join together in silent prayer. 

As in the silence we feel the presence of the Spirit, so 
may there be to-day in our lives peace, calm, and silence; so 
that as we possess our souls in quiet we may grasp more of 
the deeper truths of life. 

Help us, Holy Spirit, to forget for a time all our or¬ 
dinary ways, as far as we can. Help us to put from us the 
anxieties and the hurries of the days of the week. Help us 
to detach ourselves from the forces of competition and 
greed which seem so often to hover around us in our lives. 
During the days of the week we seem compelled to spend 
much of our time fighting circumstances, we seem to be 
compelled to spend our time on the things that are temporal, 
and we have little time left for things that are eternal. 
Help us to consider to-day the eternal ways, and to think not 
so much in days or years as to try to think in eras. Help 
us to forget for a time temporal advantages and to think of 
the great eternal meaning of our souls and our God. May 
light conversation and worthless thoughts be forgotten, and 
may the words of our mouth and the meditation of our heart 
be worthy of our real selves and our high calling. 

May the day be spent thus in worthy ways, in worthy 

148 


BEING RICH AND HAVING NOTHING 149 

thoughts and in worthwhile ambitions. May we walk with 
God to-day and understand His ways better than ever be¬ 
fore. 

And as we thus would be worthy sons and daughters of 
God, we also would have all men and women rise to greater 
levels. Be with all who are worshipping, with all who are 
thinking of the great things of life. Be with all who are 
yearning after more worthy ways. May those to-day whose 
souls as it were are seeking the heights, may all such find. 
May the hands and hearts that are reaching out and feeling 
out after God find Him. May men live for the day with 
the Spirit. 

Be with all leaders of men for the day; may unworthy 
ambitions be lost. For the day, may selfish acquisition 
be forgotten. For the day, may pride of place or position 
be forgotten, and may the leaders of men consider how to 
lead worthily, may they consider how to guide to worthy 
heights, and may they all bow down before the great Lord 
of all. 

May all nations to-day be possessed of peace. May 
thoughts that lead to peace be theirs, and may thoughts that 
lead to hatred be put aside. We need so much the quiet days 
of God. The world in its distraction needs more than all 
else to be still and know God. May the world this day 
take those wise words to heart. For a time may activity 
cease, and for a time may we forget to do and may we seek 
to be. For a time may we be content to rest and to wait— 
and to feel the touch of the Father. Grant, the world over, 
to-day, in the calm and in the quiet, we may learn of the 
ways of the Spirit, may God teach those ways to us. May 
the world be the world that it ought to be. 

“Dear Lord and Father of mankind! 

Forgive our foolish ways! 

Reclothe us in our rightful mind.” 

To-day may the rightful mind be ours, and also may this 
rightful mind be in all men, so that in deeper reverence we 
may live and in deeper peace possess our souls. Amen. 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


150 

In the Book of Proverbs, chapter xiii, verse 7, from 
which I read, there occur the following words: “There 
is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing.” That 
is rather a poor translation of the original. The original 
really says: “There is that seemeth rich, and hath 
nothing.” I want to take more that meaning. The 
Book of Proverbs is a collection of old sayings gathered 
together from the quiet country folks. If you want a 
proverb, you have to go largely into the country to find 
it. A proverb is probably a growth of experience, and 
then it is put into words by some knowing genius. We 
do not meet genius in cities. We are all alike in cities, 
and if you want a unique saying, very often you have to 
go into the country to find it. And so this Book of 
Proverbs is probably a gathering together of the common 
sayings of the Hebrews. It is full of that quiet country 
observation and country wit. It was probably collected 
together some time about 300 b. c. It received, as you 
know, first of all, the name of “Solomon,” but probably 
he had nothing at all to do with it. Probably it was the 
habit of those old days: the book was ascribed to some 
well-known man, and as Solomon was always represented 
to be wise, probably the collection was put to him because 
of that. It was ascribed to the universally well-known 
wise man, Solomon. 

This morning I want to take thought of one of the 
sayings and one that is full of very attractive meaning. 
The old Hebrews said, “Everything is not as it seems,” 
or, as we say, “All is not gold that glitters.” “There is 
that seemeth poor, but is rich,” “There is that seem- 


BEING RICH AND HAVING NOTHING 151 

eth rich, and hath nothing,” “There is that appeareth to 
be something, and it is nothing.” The country folks are 
apt more—more apt than city folks—to look beneath the 
surface. They are apt to weigh up, much more than we 
are in the city. And here we have a kind of weighing up 
of life—“Life is not what it seems,” they say. “We 
cannot judge by the exteriors, for part of those who 
seem to have much have little, and very often those who 
seem to possess very little possess a great deal.” “There 
is that seemeth rich, and hath nothing.” Let me illus¬ 
trate this by very simple things. 

We all know, and probably have all had, at one time or 
another, the habit of collecting—making collections. We 
begin the habit when we are boys, and nobody can tell 
what there is in a boy’s pocket. We collect all kinds of 
riches there. Sometimes the mother will very gingerly 
try to empty out the pockets. We begin in early days 
making our collection. Then we pass on. Perhaps, by 
and by, we begin collecting, say, fossils, then perhaps we 
pass on to photographs. In England, we used then to 
pass on to collecting crests. I don’t suppose you collect 
crests very much in America, because they are rather in 
disrepute. Then from collecting crests, if we were for¬ 
tunate, perhaps we would begin to collect postcards, then 
we would go on collecting pictures, and then, by and by, 
we would begin collecting books. I advise and hope 
that everybody has had that mania at some time or other, 
the collecting of things together. But there is one secret 
about all collections: if we can get them easily, they are 
not worth much. If we happen to have a good deal of 


152 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


money and can buy a collection, it is not worth much. 
The old proverb comes in then: “Those that appear to 
have much, have very little.” If a man can buy as 
many pictures as he likes, very often the pictures are not 
of real value to himself. The value of a collection is the 
close personal touch, the hardship that was experienced 
in collecting, the little bits of personal self-denial that are 
linked with the articles. For instance, if you remember 
as a boy how long you saved up before you bought a 
certain thing, that thing has a kind of peculiar value. 
When you look at it, it tells the history of that self-denial, 
and it tells that wonderful joy that came when you hap¬ 
pened to have saved enough to get it. The value of a 
collection is the personal touch of each article in it. And, 
of course, with books it is so more than ever. A library 
to be really of deep and personal value is not one that we 
can afford to buy and buy easily. A library that is 
worthwhile tells again of the many little personal touches; 
of books, perhaps, that you saw in a window and had not 
the money to buy, and you went past there many a day, 
hoping that nobody else had bought the book. You 
saved up very carefully and then when you had got the 
money together you went with great rapture and pur¬ 
chased your treasure. Ever afterwards that treasure 
stands there, not simply as a book, but it stands there as 
something else. A library to be worth anything has a 
history behind it. Books that are dusted and never used 
are not worth much. The books that are worth anything 
are the books that are soiled by constant using, the books 
that are marked pretty freely. There is only one draw- 


BEING RICH AND HAVING NOTHING 153 

back in borrowed books and libraries, you cannot mark 
them, and half the value of a book is in the marks that 
you make in it. I always like to get hold of a book that 
is marked, and expect to find, if I know the one who 
marked it, that there is a value in the marks. Books are 
valuable as you know them and love them and mark them, 
they are of value as you can stretch out your hand with¬ 
out even looking, and know where the books are. A 
library is worth nothing if you do not know where the 
books are in the dark, if you cannot go straight to the 
books you want, without match or candle. I believe I 
could go to my father’s library, in the dark, after thirty 
years; I believe I could go to that library yet and take 
books out with my eyes closed—after thirty years have 
passed. A library is what you make your own, the books 
that you know and just where they are; books that open 
just where you want them, and books that are marked 
just where you like them. A purchased library is not 
worth much. Generally it is full of dust and generally 
unread. More than anything else, then, probably, in a 
library, “There is that seemeth rich, and yet hath noth¬ 
ing,” and there is “That seemeth very poor, and yet hath 
much.” 

Now let us follow this line of thought to the deeper 
things of life. For what really is true of an ordinary 
collection, what is true of a little library, is true of the 
great deep things of life; it is true of the great spiritual 
meaning of life, perhaps truer here than anywhere else. 
“There is that seemeth rich,” in spiritual things, “and 
hath nothing.” 


154 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


Now let us see what that means. We all know the 
outward marks of a Christian, attendance at church, 
help in financial needs, the use, say, of—although this 
fortunately is dying out—the use of theological language 
and terms. We all know the outward signs of religion. 
How much are they worth? Just like a library, how 
much are they worth? They are worth just as 
much as they are worth in being signs of something else. 
If they simply are outward tokens of something deeper, 
they are worth something; but if they are simply surface 
things with nothing below, they are worth absolutely 
nothing. The signs of spiritual life, in themselves, un¬ 
less they are tokens, are worth nothing. Imagine having 
a house full of books absolutely unread. And a person 
may use all the outward signs of religion and have 
nothing beneath. And then by and by—by and by 
there comes a day of disaster. By and by there comes 
a time when our deep thoughts are necessary, when our 
foundation truths are required, and we haven’t got them. 
In my life I have noticed it in fateful times. We see one 
of the usual worshippers has had a great misfortune, and 
there has been nothing to meet it, and the man or the 
woman has left church, has put aside altogether profes¬ 
sions of religion. They seemed to be religious, but when 
the difficult days came they had nothing and they simply 
drifted after the loss. I have seen it several times and it 
is always a cause of great pain. It shows that there was 
never a really deep and firm hold of spiritual truths. 
They had the outward, but never felt the inward. 

Now let us consider, therefore, the inward things that 


BEING RICH AND HAVING NOTHING 155 

come. It may be—no one can tell, it may be that very 
briefly you and I will be tried severely, it may be that 
some time soon or late you and I may have such expe¬ 
rience that nobody can help us. There are lots of ex¬ 
periences in life in which no one can help. The real 
experiences of life are exceedingly personal and we have 
got to meet them ourselves. There are times in life when 
I do not want to have anybody give me advice, when I do 
not want to hear anybody give me sympathy, and when 
I want to be by myself and fight my own difficulty. And 
unless I have some foundation then I am gone. And it 
is so with every one. There often come times in life 
when, alone, we have to decide our philosophy of life, 
and when alone we have to prove ourselves either men 
and women or nothing. Then comes the time when 
seeming is absolutely no good. We seem to be religious 
men or women in the world sense, but we have nothing. 

Now, what are the deep things that we must have when 
the real experiences of life come to us? The first, of 
course, is what we call faith, but the word is often mis¬ 
used: a deep-down belief that there is a God. You 
might say, all believe that. I am not sure. I am not 
sure. I have said it scores of times, I have seen it hun¬ 
dreds of times, but I am not so absolutely sure that we 
all believe it. When all the storms come we need to be 
able to say, “I know there is a God.” Now, friends, it 
is not so easy as it looks. I have heard many a one that 
I thought was absolutely sure of that say to me, “Do you 
think”—and they said it without shame—“do you think 
there is a purpose in life ?” Unless we both think it and 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


*56 

know it, no matter what comes, we seem to be and are 
not. The first thing, therefore, is simply a belief that 
there is a God, and that that God is guiding, and guiding 
rightly and purposefully. 

Now, it is not so easy as it seems—when all that we 
have trusted in goes, and when we are tried almost be¬ 
yond the power of endurance, then to be able to say, “I 
know that all is well.” That is not so frequently seen as 
we would think. We seem to believe it when we are in 
fair weather, but often when it gets foul weather we 
find that we did not really grasp it. I know of what I 
am speaking. 

Then, if we have that, there comes a second possession, 
which is peace. You have often heard that benediction, 
which is so beautiful, but so often used that we lose its 
beauty: “The peace of God, that passeth understanding.” 
No matter what comes, somehow, deep down, there is 
peace. You cannot explain it, but you believe somehow 
that God is doing things rightly and that the life 
is ordered rightly, and, therefore, deep down you 
have peace. I have seen very few men in my 
life who really had that peace. You reckon up in your 
lives how many of us—how many of us have this absolute 
confidence. If we really had our religion, we should have 
that at all times. 

Then, having this peace, there is a quiet way of re¬ 
garding difficulties and troubles. I was amused, during 
the week, in reading an extract from Hume. He put it 
in his characteristic way. He said, “To be able to see 
the advantages in disadvantages is worth ten thousand 



BEING RICH AND HAVING NOTHING 157 

pounds a year.” I am not sure we should all value it 
quite so highly, but I know it is worth a great deal to see 
the advantages in disadvantages. And Ruskin puts the 
same truth in a way that perhaps appeals to New Eng¬ 
landers more. He says that sunshine is thrilling, storm 
is exhilarating. There is no bad weather, it is only dif¬ 
ferent kinds of good weather. I am sure you can 
all appreciate that. Different kinds of good weather! 
When we really grasp deep down the certainty that God 
is guiding—there is no evil, there is no mischance, there 
is no misfortune. 

Now, what I have said, I know is difficult to say. 
Pain, sickness, and long-suffering come, loss and disaster 
come, trials come, and apparent defeat comes. Is there 
nothing back? Can we say with Ruskin there is no bad 
weather? It is difficult to say it. But if we use it, 
knowing that God is close at hand, all the seeming ill will 
turn to good. Faith is a magician’s wand, it changes 
everything into pure gold. I may seem to be saying 
what is impossible, but I am certain that I am saying 
what is necessary to be said. There is no such thing as 
evil if we use it rightly. I do not mean all evil—sin. 
There is no such thing as evil happenings, if we use them 
rightly. They are often inexplicable, but used rightly 
they are like the very finest fire in making char¬ 
acters more and more noble. That is where I part so 
strongly with our friends of the Christian Science 
Church. They close their eyes to half of the experiences 
of life. They say, “It is not so, it is not there.” I say 
everything belongs to God. I give nothing to evil, I close 




THE HILLS OF GOD 


158 

my eyes to nothing, for the darker experiences mean 
something, death means something, the beautiful experi¬ 
ences mean something. They are all, as it were, in God’s 
world. Just as real is the darkness as the light, just as 
real is the pain as the pleasure, just as real is death as 
life; and each is part of God’s great world. I am going 
to give nothing away, for everything that is, to me, is a 
means of adjustment. I do not say it is sent for that 
purpose, but I say that when it comes it is a means of 
adjustment. Now, if we possess a real, deep-down 
Christian faith, we feel like that. 

I have been very much touched during the week at one 
appeal that was made to me about faith. Some one who 
was in difficulty asked the meaning of life. That is the 
meaning of it to me. Whatever is, is to be used, and to 
be used again, to be transformed into a blessing. God is 
ever present, never absent. Everything is in His world, 
and everything can be used as a rung of a ladder to climb 
nearer and nearer the desired heights. But—then, we 
have not yet reached that point we thought we had. We 
seemed to be religious, but we had it not. 

Then, possessing this, there comes finally a great op¬ 
timism. I do not mean a thoughtless optimism; a real, 
deep-down, thoughtful optimism, which says, “Though 
things seem dark, God is; though the way is hard and 
our feet are bleeding, we are approaching the summit. 
Whatever happens is but a stage to a final perfection.” I 
mean an optimism like that. All Christians must have it. 
I never place the Golden Age behind me, the Golden Age 
is ahead of me, and God is guiding towards it. You 


BEING RICH AND HAVING NOTHING 159 

and I give the little help that we can give to use towards 
that end. 

Such, to me, are the abiding things that religion 
gives to us: First, God, certainly; second, the peace that 
comes from that certainty; third, the faith that whatever 
happens can be transmuted into blessing; and, fourth, 
that all things finally lead upwards and that the world is 
rolling daily nearer to God. 

What form the consummation will take no one knows. 
It may be that this world—and it probably will be—that 
this world will pass as the planets have often passed, 
like stars: the world, our little planet, will pass away. 
But, in the end, I cannot but believe there will be an ex¬ 
planation of all life and of all religious experiences in life. 
All finally must be well. 

I wonder, friends, if you can see what I have been 
trying to say, I wonder if you can live it out. I expect 
you all hesitate before you say either Yes or No: the 
question is so big that you do not know. God help us, 
so that in addition to possessing the outwards of faith— 
in addition to seeming, we may have faith. God help us 
that we may also possess it—that seeming rich, we may 
also be rich. 

I hope that I may help a little, so that when the dark 
days come to you, you may never tremble, but lean back 
on the arms of God. To me, that is the best consumma¬ 
tion of life. Life consists in nothing else but that. 
When we feel certain and confident and know—then we 
have gained the prize of life. I pray, friends, that that 
prize may be yours. 


i6o 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


Let us pray. 

Help us, Heavenly Father, so that we may daily know 
Thee more and more; so that daily we may grow unto 
Thee. So that whatever happens our grasp of Thy hand 
may never loosen and our faith in Thy guidance never falter. 

May we not only seem to have the essentials of religious 
life—may we not only seem to have them, but may we deep 
down hold them. Amen. 


SUCH AS I HAVE, I GIVE 


Let us join together in silent prayer. 

Holy Spirit, to-day we would be earnest in seeking after 
the things of the Spirit. During the week that has passed 
we have tried to do our best in the ordinary everyday walks 
of life. We have been attentive to our various tasks. 
And, to-day, we would be attentive to the ways and the mind 
of the Spirit. To-day, we would seek earnestly and seri¬ 
ously the inner things of life. To-day, we would give our 
thoughts and our attention to the ways of the Eternal. 
Putting aside the temporal—the things of the day, now we 
would think of things of the Eternal, abiding and ever¬ 
lastingly true. Help us so to do, and as we so do, may our 
minds be receptive and may the blessings that come from the 
things of the Spirit be felt silently throbbing through our 
life. 

May we who are troubled find comfort. May we who are 
lonely, having lost the companionships of life, feel Thy 
company more than ever. May the lonely find the compan¬ 
ionship of God and His comforting words. May those of 
us who were, perhaps, anxious concerning the future, find 
this day added strength so that we may meet our demands 
more successfully. May those who are in weakness find 
inner strength. May we all as we need, and as we con¬ 
sider God, find entering into our being the blessings of 
God. May thus the day be rich with the gifts of the 
Father, and may the brightness of it find an echo thus in 
added lightness within. May the clouds that have gathered 
be dissipated, may the fogs that have hung around disap¬ 
pear, and may we have brightness within and the peace of 
God which passeth understanding. 

And these great inner spiritual blessings that we ask for 

161 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


162 

ourselves we ask for all men and women everywhere. No 
matter what the creed or conduct of worship may be, may 
the seeking soul be satisfied, may the longing soul find itself 
with God, and may the memories of this day hallow us all, 
the day when we commemorate the lives that have been 
given for the land and thus for us. May such day be 
solemnly and seriously in mind. And may such of us as 
are benefiting by sacrifice be brave enough to sacrifice our¬ 
selves for our land; if we have not been called upon to die 
for our land, we are still called upon to serve the land. 
And may this day find us sanctifying ourselves to service. 

Be with all lands. May the minds of men and women 
be attracted to-day to higher types, so that in the discord 
across the water calm minds be encountered and so may 
minds that have been led of the Spirit take up the burdens 
of to-morrow. We yearn, and therefore we pray, for the 
days when countries shall understand each other, and when 
whilst living for each other each may live for all and each 
try to help all. May it be that we may live long enough to 
see the day when much of this hatred and destruction may 
disappear and when we all, walking quietly and humbly in 
the Spirit, shall truly be men and women of God. 

Again, we seek Thy Holy Spirit. May we receive it. 
Amen. 

I read to you one of the stories from the Book of Acts, 
chapter iii, verse 6. In that story these words occur, 
“Such as I have, give I thee.” 

I do not want to dwell on the story. It is probably one 
of the old stories that has been amplified by a desire to 
enlarge the influence of Peter. I won’t, therefore, read 
the story, but give a fuller meaning to the words that 
were casually used by Peter. Being asked for money, 
he replied, “I will give thee such as I have.” Although 
the words were probably casually used, they have a very 
wide meaning. 


SUCH AS I HAVE, I GIVE 163 

In all life we are all giving out. There is never a 
moment in any life when we are not out-giving, both, 
perhaps, consciously and certainly unconsciously. Every 
life affects every other life, and every life gives out to 
every other life something. We are never quiescent. 
There is not an instant when we are in company, in which 
we are not giving out something. And this is not simply 
true of human beings, it is true of everything. Every 
thing affects every other thing. One star affects another 
star. As you know, a planet was discovered because of 
the effects that were first observed. An electrical dis¬ 
turbance on the sun causes an electrical disturbance on the 
earth. The mountain, which rears its head skywards, 
affects the whole district round about. The rolling sea 
affects all the lands which it washes. A customary 
traveller, one that is used to passing over the waves, can 
tell without sight of the land when land is near. Every¬ 
thing affects everything else. And all histories are his¬ 
tories, practically, of effects. Those who live, say, in 
the mountainous land have their character, those who 
live in the plains have another character. Our sur¬ 
roundings are always giving to us, and we are always 
giving back to them. Those who live in the East, of the 
States, have one character, those who live in the West 
have a slightly different character, because of the gifts 
that they unconsciously have been receiving. From all, 
material and immaterial alike, there is a constant stream 
of gifts. Why, often, even the air itself affects us. 
Some days it exhilarates, some days it depresses. There 
is not a moment in life in which we are not receiving 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


164 

and just at the same time giving. The street in which 
we live is affected by our presence. The home, in which 
we dwell, gathers a tone because of our presence. 
The church with which we worship gains a certain 
character from our unconscious giving. There is not— 
as I have said—a moment when you and I are not giving 
out. 

I want this morning to consider, therefore, the source 
of that gift. Whence comes—or where is the source of 
this out-giving? Why is it, or wherefore is it, that I 
affect you and that you affect me? Whence comes that 
effect? We might say, “Well, perhaps it is your 
position, it comes partly from your activities, it comes 
partly from your possessions, it comes partly from your 
social standing.’’ Yes, all that is true. They all affect 
somewhat, but they none of them are the deepest sources 
of our giving. That is something else. It is not what 
I have that makes my influence, chiefly. It is not who 
I am that makes my influence, chiefly. It is not what I 
do, that chiefly counts. It is something else. What is 
it, then, that makes my influence? It is something— 
somewhere—iff myself. It is something—somdhow— 
that I mysteriously have that I give out. We each one 
have a “something” that gives out itself. 

Take countries, and it is true. Take Russia, that great 
enigma of to-day, concerning which no one knows what 
is happening, but yet Russia has, somehow, some power 
in the world. As Graham calls it, she is the “Mary” of 
the world, with her devotional superstition. Yet she 



SUCH AS I HAVE, I GIVE 165 

has something—not in her present unrest, but she gives 
it in her rest—that is very deep, in her millions. Ger¬ 
many gives something. It is not her past history. It is 
not her mistakes that she made—her terrible mistakes in 
seeking material aggrandizement. There is something 
else in a German that tells. There is something subtle 
in the German character that we all recognize, yet cannot, 
perhaps, explain. It is so in France. We can describe 
the general characteristics of an everyday Frenchman, 
but when we have described them all there is something 
else. There is something in a man of the United States. 
We know the open, outward characteristics, any man in 
Europe would recognize them—the outward character¬ 
istics. But there is something else, there is something in 
the American character that every nation recognizes. 
We all as nations have something behind, and that some¬ 
thing is what we really give. 

I want you to notice that. It is not America’s great¬ 
ness that counts. It is not her acreage that counts. 
It is that something else. It is not the Englishman’s 
cosmopolitanism that counts. It is something else. 
There is something deep down, behind every character 
even of a nation, and it is that something that we take 
into account. And it is that something that gives us 
what the Old Testament called a “name.” You remem¬ 
ber, it is said that the nations sought after a name. It 
is that something that gives us our real name. 
It is so even in the States. It is so in the English 
counties, little as they are, and close to each other as they 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


166 

are. The Englishman stands for something. The Lan¬ 
cashire man stands for something. The Warwick man, 
the Birmingham man, stands for something else. Each 
county, practically, has a certain type of character that 
it has gained and of which every one is conscious. 
And it is so, of course, in the United States. The New 
England States have their type of manhood and woman¬ 
hood, the Middle States have their type, the Western 
States have another. I call them a “type.” That is 
the word we use. But what does it mean? There is 
something behind or underneath, which we recognize, 
and it is that something underneath which we really give. 

So it is even true of cities. The man of Boston, the 
woman of Boston, is different from the man or woman 
of New Orleans. What is it? We have been, in each 
of the respective cities, receiving from those with whom 
we live, we have been giving out to those with whom 
we have been living, and we have gradually built up a 
kind of character which is the thing that we give out. 

Why, it is so in churches. The activity of the 
churches is not the thing deep down that speaks. It is 
not the number of meetings we hold during the week, 
or the number of organizations that we have. There 
is something else. And I am proud of that something 
else in connection with this Church. I meet it con¬ 
stantly. There is a voice, somehow, that speaks, there 
is a character, somehow, that lives. 

And, of course—of course, it is so in regard to all 
persons. j; 



SUCH AS I HAVE, I GIVE 167 

Whence comes it? Iif you like, call it a gift. It is a 
something that shall really speak and tell. It is some¬ 
thing in our inner selves. 

And as regards this, I am afraid it is the one thing 
we neglect. I am afraid it is the one possession that 
we overlook more than any other. Your inner self, and 
my inner self, are our greatest possessions. Yet I am 
rather inclined to suspect that we both neglect that more 
than any other part of ourselves. 

Those who have the gift of color look at a picture and 
they say, “I like that,” or “I like the genius that can 
paint a picture like that.” Those who have the gift of 
music listen to a great musician and they say secretly, 
“Would that I could play like that!” So in athletics. 
Those who are rather fond of athletics see some wonder¬ 
fully graceful exercisers, and they say, “Would that I 
could do like that!” Probably all of us could approx¬ 
imate somewhat those great things, but it would be at a 
price. If I want to paint well, I must prepare for it. 
If I want to play well, I must prepare for it. If I want 
to be athletic, I must watch every instant my physical 
frame. Whatever I want to be, I know I have got to 
pay the price for it. Nothing perfect is given. Even 
money-making is not a gift of some great God. It is a 
genius if you like, or an ability, that is gained by prac¬ 
tice. There is nothing given to us anywhere, but the 
great have learned their greatness at a price. The 
musician has played, shall I say, thousands upon thou¬ 
sands of hours ere he reached his perfection, the athlete 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


168 

has practised thousands of hours. Nothing comes but 
by training and by practice. 

• ••••■ • • 

I am stopping now for you to do the thinking. 

A character does not come by gift. We gain it by 
earning it. We gain it by winning it. And in no other 
way. Saintliness is not a gift, it is a reward. Influ¬ 
ence is not something handed to us, it is something we 
have created. And we are forgetting that. If I want 
to give out that which is worthwhile, I am not going to 
do it unless I prepare for it. Saintliness—character— 
influence come just like everything else—by being lived 
for. We begin our course in childhood. And here 
let me say a word for our parents, for a child becomes 
prepared for this influence by every word of the parents; 
and every influence of home, and every atmosphere of 
home help to mould. Then we go along into youth. 
Every teacher shapes partly this coming influence, every 
lesson from the teacher’s life moulds the youth. The 
parent and the teacher are giving, perhaps, more than 
any one else: such as they have, they are giving to their 
children. And then comes the day when the child shapes 
for itself, and then comes the time for practice, as you 
might say. Then comes the constant, continual living. 

I am certain that we forget this. We do not give 
time to ourselves that we give to other things. And, 
mind you, if we do not give time to ourselves, we shall 
never gain the power we should wield. 

The other day I was talking to the widow of one of 
our most loved ministers—one of our ministers who 


SUCH AS I HAVE, I GIVE 


169 

probably stood among the highest in our denomination 
for spiritual sweetness, for the attractiveness of spiritual 
beauty. And I heard on all hands how much this man 
gave out. Men have told me how much he gave to them 
unconsciously. How did he gain it? Easily? The 
widow told me that, year after year, every morning be¬ 
fore that minister entered the pulpit he read that pecu¬ 
liarly beautiful charge of George Herbert, called 
“Aaron.” You remember, Aaron is described particu¬ 
larly in the Old Testament. He was a priest and the 
garment of the priest was described. Herbert, as his 
custom is, allegorizes this, and speaks of the dress of 
Aaron, that is, the dress of the minister. And every 
Sunday morning, ere this minister entered the pulpit, he 
read this little poem to himself: 

“Holinesse on the head, 

Light and perfections on the breast, 
Harmonious bells below, raising the dead 
To leade them unto life and rest; 

Thus are true Aarons drest. 

Profanenesse in my head, 

Defects and darknesse in my breast, 

A noise of passions ringing me for dead 
Unto a place where is no rest; 

Poore priest thus am I drest. 

Onely another head 
I have, another heart and breast, 

Another musick, making live not dead, 

Without whom I could have no rest; 

In him I am well drest. 

Christ is my onely head, 

My alone onely heart and breast, 


170 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


My onely musick, striking me ev’n dead, 

That to the old man I may rest, 

And be in him new drest. 

So holy in my head, 

Perfect and light in my deare breast, 

My doctrine tun’d by Christ (who is not dead, 

But lives in me while I do rest), 

Come people! Aaron’s drest.” 

Can you feel there that source, or one of the sources, 
of the influence of that holy man, every Sunday morn¬ 
ing reading that as to how a priest should be dressed, 
and when he is dressed, humbly saying, “Come, people, 
Aaron’s drest.” Can you see one of the sources of that 
spiritual help? It was not given. The minister gained 
it by reading and reading and praying. 

And what was true of this man in the pulpit is true of 
you and me all the time. That subtle beauty of char¬ 
acter, which is life’s grandest possession, is gained by 
being sought, by being cherished, by being practised. 

Are we doing it? 

Remember, it is eternally true. Men and women are 
giving to us all, every day, and they are wanting—they 
are crying out for something, and all you and I can do 
is to say, “Such as I have, I give.” Such as I have! If 
we be poor, if we be rich, if we be mean, if we be selfish, 
if we be Satanic—“Such as I have, I give thee. I give 
thee the evil I have. Take it. It is all I have. Take 
it. I have received that evil, I have received that sin. 
That is all I have. Take it. I give it thee.” And 
men take it. Men take it, and they go back to life all 


SUCH AS I HAVE, I GIVE 


1 7 l 

the worse for being in our company. God forbid that 
I have cursed any man in my company, God forbid I 
could curse any man. God forbid that you have given 
anything like that. And the saint—the saint knows 
nothing about it, but he gives: just as the minister 
gave, he gives because he has—“Such as I have, I give.” 

May you give, as our Master gave, and as all Divine 
sons and daughters of God should give. 

Let us pray. 

Help us, Father, to train ourselves. Help us so to live 
that we may acquire that beauty of holiness which shall 
render the world more holy. Amen. 


MAN’S SEARCH AFTER GOD 


Let us join together in silent prayer. 

Holy, Ever-brooding Spirit, we pray, this day, to be con¬ 
scious of Thy nearness, and that all men may be alike con¬ 
scious. Thou art ever moving through life, ever urging 
fuller life, and we are all in our way striving to answer the 
urge, but often we make mistakes and we think that what we 
can touch and handle will satisfy our cravings; we often 
think that if we can gain possesion of that which we desire 
we shall be satisfied; we think sometimes if we gain the 
comfort for which we long, or the power which we crave, or 
the things which we like, we shall then be satisfied, and yet 
we know that the unrest still remains and that always we are 
looking ahead, and always thinking and wondering how to be 
satisfied. 

May we, this day, and may all men, remember the lesson 
that the wise man of old did learn, “I shall be satisfied, when 
I awake, in thy likeness.” May we to-day learn that source 
of satisfaction. May we to-day think on that one abiding 
restfulness. May we to-day think of things unseen and of 
the Spirit which is everywhere. 

Be with all who are seeking holiday to-day. May their 
pleasures be such as leave no sting, may their joys be such as 
leave no regret. And, perhaps, in the quieter moments they 
may hear and understand the promptings of the still, small 
voice. 

Listen to-day to the longings of all, the aged and the 
young, the busy and the idle, the healthful and the sick, those 
who are prospering and those who seem to be failing. Be 
with all, and somehow may the little hands of man be en¬ 
clasped by the larger hands of the Spirit. 

172 


MAN’S SEARCH AFTER GOD 


173 

And so may the day be one of quiet, inner joy and of 
real inspiration. 

Be with all whose duties may be to assist seekers this day. 
May all who preach feel the responsibility of their position 
and zealously and lovingly seek to aid, may they likewise so 
strive that some words may abide in the hearts of listeners. 

Be with all who help in the home, in the hospital, in the 
jail, or who in any way try to make this day helpful. 

Throughout, may it be a day when it shall not be mis¬ 
named—the Day of the Lord. And may its influence so 
abide that to-morrow and every subsequent day may be more 
holy and purer. 

Again, we pray for ourselves. May every worshipping 
heart here feel God and may every worshipper here go home 
more hopeful, more joyous, and more holy. So that the day 
may assist us in the growth for which we all do pray. 

Amen. 

I want to speak, this morning, on man’s search after 
God. I am taking the topic largely because of sugges¬ 
tions that have been impressed on my mind during the 
last few weeks of reading. I have been in preparation 
for something else, obliged to read as far as I could 
the world-known literature both old and of recent days, 
and as I have read I have been struck with the very 
marked impression that man has always been seeking 
something and that his whole literature, from the very 
earliest days to the latest, expresses a craving! after 
something. The old Greeks were seeking something. 
The Latins followed with a search different, but still a 
search. The Middle Ages perhaps for a time seemed 
quiescent. Then the search broke out in greater 
strength than ever. And we find right on from the 
Middle Ages to the present that search expressed in all 


i /4 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


our writings. Man has always been somehow seeking 
something and we cannot put our finger on any age when 
the world seems to have been absolutely satisfied. There 
has always been a something desired that was not pos¬ 
sessed, and it was the impression of this feeling that 
made me choose this subject—man’s search after God. 
But I want to ask you to put, perhaps, a rather larger 
interpretation or a rather wider significance on God, than 
we very often do. 

When we speak of God we are often asked to think 
of a person outside of ourselves, and we are apt to think 
that when we are seeking God we are seeking a voice or 
an influence coming from that something outside of our¬ 
selves. All the old Hebrew writings have that feeling— 
God was a person walking in the Garden, who looked 
down to see what men were doing, who talked to Abra¬ 
ham at the door of his tent. The old idea was that he 
was a person, and I suppose in nineteen cases out of 
twenty when we think of God we think, I was going to 
say, unconsciously like that. We think of God as being 
some person, or outside of ourselves. 

I want to ask you this morning to try to think of 
God as spirit, as a spirit moving around us always, in 
us always, throbbing everywhere, but it is a very difficult 
conception. I do not think many of us can so conceive 
Him in our mind—God is a spirit. Let us try, how¬ 
ever, to do it this morning, to bear in mind that there is 
a throbbing, thrilling spirit everywhere, and we are in 
that—just as we are in the air of to-day. You know 
what it means sometimes to step out into a very bracing 


MAN’S SEARCH AFTER GOD 


175 

air, and the air gets into your very being, and you al¬ 
most want to jump and shout. If we really find our¬ 
selves as we do at times in God’s presence, like that air, 
we have the same thrilling Reeling, just as we have in 
our bodies when the bracing air cheers us up. Let us 
try this morning, as I say, to think of the Spirit that 
is everywhere around urging us, aiding us, calling us to 
a fuller life. 

First of all, let us think of it in man’s search for 
comfort. We all know that men began in a very little 
way, living in some cave, and having, probably, no more 
comforts than any of the beasts with which they con¬ 
tested. But there was something felt, in that far-off day, 
by man that others did not feel. There was an unrest 
somehow even in those earlier days, and by and by we 
find man feeling out after comforts. Somehow he 
learned to make a fire, somehow he learned to build, 
somehow he learned to make clothing; and slowly, 
gradually, ever urged by some not-understood spirit 
within him, he sought after fuller and fuller comfort, 
and now when we think of our homes with all their com¬ 
forts, what a world of distance there is between the man 
in the cave and us in our cultured homes. But we can¬ 
not help but feel that all the search after comfort has 
been prompted by the Spirit, that it has been an answer 
of mankind to the prompting. We have wanted more 
things, better things, a fuller life. Man has been seek¬ 
ing after it in all that has pertained to his comforts. 

Then, man has been ever searching after larger ac¬ 
complishments, and this is a thrilling search. He began, 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


176 

I suppose, satisfied if his arms were strong enough to 
find his food: if he found food and shelter, that was all 
that he could expect to gain. But there was a spirit in 
him that prompted him to more than that, and somehow 
he began to learn how to increase his powers. He 
learned how to construct the sling, he learned how to 
sharpen a stone and make a weapon, he learned then how 
to use metals and minerals. 

And with their accomplishment, a voice still urged 
him to fuller accomplishment. Steadily he grew, began 
his collective life, and by and by his powers were en¬ 
larged a hundredfold. And the voice still urged him on. 
And so our machinery; machinery and inventions of 
every kind are only an answer to man’s dreams: some¬ 
thing calling higher—a dream or ambition in one man 
calling him,higher, and other men followed the individual. 
To-day, we see a million times as far into the skies as 
our predecessors. We see infinitely deeper into the 
earth than our forefathers ever dreamed of. And 
during the last hundred years we have moved in such an 
era of invention that no old thinker would ever even 
have imagined it. What is going to happen in the next 
hundred years? The voice will still invite upward, the 
call will still be heard by men of genius. And all, in 
my estimation, is the voice of God. Man is not destined 
to a little life, man was too great to live in a cave, man is 
yet too great to live in a slum. Man is too great to be 
satisfied with imperfection. Man is Divine, and until 
he realizes what divinity means, he will have to be grow¬ 
ing, he cannot help it. He must be searching for some- 


MAN’S SEARCH AFTER GOD 


177 


thing within him that says, “Seek. Seek. Seek.” 
And something within him says, “I will.” And man 
goes on finding new accomplishments. 

The same is true of man’s joys, man’s pleasures. The 
first, I suppose, he had known—if he gained food, he 
rested; if he gained shelter, he was thankful. And I 
suppose that was all the pleasure he had, sensuous, the 
pleasure of the senses. But, again, man was too big to 
be satisfied like that, and I can imagine that one day, 
perhaps, in stretching some animal’s skin a sound came 
out of the stretched skin as it was struck, and I can 
imagine some genius being attracted by the sound, and 
by and by we have the lyre, the beginnings of music. 
I remember in one of the caves in the Southwest there are 
a number of paintings by the old-time Indians, very crude, 
but you can see what they are—a serpent, a buffalo, a 
man. Those paintings have been there long, long years. 
And I can imagine that one day some man saw that he 
could copy a shape, and the tribe gathered around him 
and expressed their pleasure. 

Thus were born music and art, and then man began 
further and further to improve, and our pleasures are 
increasing daily. It is well that it is so. Life, as I have 
said, is too large to be satisfied with littleness. Every 
man has been seeking—seeking comfort, seeking power, 
seeking pleasure, and the search is by no means ended, 
probably only begun. 

But now let me speak of another search which means 
a great deal more. 

All the way through, there has been a “something” 


178 THE HILLS OF GOD 

inside of man that has made him seek after the cause of 
things—made him ask, and catechise himself. “What 
is the meaning, even, of this urge ? What is the meaning 
of the things I see? Who am I? What is life?” And 
man has been seeking what life—real life—means. And 
now we call it the “soul.” We say that there is within 
us a something that responds to the God around, like 
the keys of the instrument that respond to the touch of 
the player. So there is something in us that responds 
to the touch of God, and we are seeking always to make 
that response more beautiful and more meaningful. 

Literature is one long expression of that desire that 
man should be played upon by the fingers of God and 
that man should answer with some worthy reply. We 
are seeking, seeking. Will the day ever come when man’s 
long search can end, when man can say, “I have gained, 
at last, the Holy Jerusalem; now I can be at peace”? 
Will that day ever come? I doubt it. I doubt it. And 
perhaps I cannot help but feel that I hope it will not 
come. 

I remember, in the Southwest, climbing Mount Frank¬ 
lin. We started out at noon, we camped for the night, 
and after a morning’s climb we reached the highest point. 
But when we reached it, we saw away to the northeast, 
eighty miles distant, another high peak, white with snow, 
beautiful, gleaming through the blue distance. And we 
all said, “Well, we have climbed Franklin, we will climb 
the White Mountain next.” After about a year, after 
two or three days of camping, we reached the summit 
of the White Mountain, and across—this time, to the 


MAN’S SEARCH AFTER GOD 


179 


northwest, on the borders of Arizona, we saw another 
white peak still higher. We said to one another, “We 
will climb that some day.” But we never did. 

Supposing we had done so, we should probably have 
seen, to the north then, Long’s Peak, higher still. And 
if we climbed Long’s Peak, we should probably have seen 
a little higher still some of the greater Giant Rockies. 
And it would have taken our lifetime to climb all the 
peaks, and yet there would have been higher reaches 
ahead. It is just like that in our lives, and I think it 
always will be. We climb one peak and we perhaps 
feel inclined to say, “There, I have done something 
worthwhile.” 

We have had a great many masters of music, who 
have given us music worthwhile. We have had a 
Shakespeare, and through him we have risen to the 
heights of literature. But there are other heights still 
ahead. We have not yet reached perfection. 

And, some day, we find a temptation. We defeat it. 
Some day, we find a depression, and we conquer it. 
Some time, some day, we do a noble deed, and at night we 
can say, without undue pride, “I have fought a good 
fight.” But, deep down, there comes another conscious¬ 
ness which says, “Not as though I had already attained, 
but I press forward toward the mark of my high calling.” 

Whatever peak we climb, there is a higher peak ahead. 
Whatever attainment we gain, there is a fuller attain¬ 
ment awaiting us. I do not know that man will ever be 
satisfied. I do not know that he should. But I do 
know that he ought to seek, and that if he be true, he 


i8o 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


cannot help but seek. There is God within me. When 
I hear Him speak, I am compelled to try to be better. 
There is God within you. When you hear His still, 
small voice, you cannot help but say, “I must climb 
higher.” 

The only difficulty is—and it is marked all through 
history, the only difficulty is that we men and women 
are apt to confuse real values. It is right to seek comfort, 
it is a God-inspired search. But if we think that com¬ 
fort be everything, what then? It is right to seek pos¬ 
sessions. But if we think possessions are everything, 
how hard it is ‘Tor him who trusteth in his riches to 
enter into the kingdom of the Spirit.” 

The difficulty is that we confuse values. The only 
final value is that which appeals to the soul within. The 
only final accomplishment is that in which the soul itself 
can say, “I have walked with God to-day.” 

There is even beyond this the final accomplishment. 
I want to urge you all to-day to continue in the search. 
Never be satisfied. Never be contented. Never think 
that you have climbed the highest peak. Look abroad, 
and you will find higher ones still ahead. And if you 
think perhaps some day you have done well, look into the 
distance and you will see greater heights. 

The nearer you get to the heights the more you see 
higher peaks around. Down in the plain, in the desert, 
we could see no high peaks, we needed to be on Franklin 
to see the White Mountain. Down in ordinary life we 
are apt to be contented. It is when with God that we 
see the Hills of God. May you ever climb, and may you 


MAN’S SEARCH AFTER GOD 181 

ever see in the blue distance higher hills. May you ever 
say, “I will climb those some day.” And when you do, 
may you see the higher hills still in the distance. 

May we together continue to climb, and then when 
our days of climbing are over, I suppose we shall climb 
higher still, but in a different way. 

God help us ever to seek and some day to partially 
find. 

Let us pray. 

We thank Thee, Father, that we cannot be satisfied. We 
thank Thee that we cannot rest. Help us to seek. Help 
us ever to be ambitious, ever to be eager after fuller and 
better things. May our life be one continued expansion, 
one constant growth. Amen. 


THE IMMORTAL TRUTHS OF 
CHRISTIANITY 


May it be, Eternal Father, that the busy, noisy life 
of mankind be still. May men be quiet this day and so 
perhaps know God. May all who are seeking with 
conscious search, and those who are longing in uncon¬ 
scious search, may all alike, in some way, touch the hem 
of the Divine Garment this day. May the eyes of men 
be opened so that they see what has never been seen by 
them before, and may their ears somehow listen to 
songs that have never been heard before. May the 
earth this day be more holy than ever before. May 
those in pain feel the cool hand on their fevered brow. 
May those in anxiety learn within that our Heavenly 
Father knoweth. May those who are afraid of the 
future somehow begin to be confident in God. “Why 
art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou dis¬ 
quieted? Hope thou in God.” Thus may all in need, 
all in uncertainty, all with vain wishes passing through 
their lives—may all to-day see some of the Divine light 
and may their faces shine with the glory and the beauty 
of holiness. No matter what the creed may be, no 
matter what form of faith may have been followed, 
throughout the whole world may seeking men find, may 
erring men be taught, and may lost men and women be 
found to-day. In all homes, the world over, stately or 
humble, civilized or uncivilized, in all homes somehow 
may there be a Divine Guest and a responding answer 
and welcome in men’s souls. May the day prove itself 
a real Lord’s Day, and may more than ever men seek 
the higher and spurn, and hajte, and condemn the 
lower. 

Be with all whose minds shall be concerned with 

182 


IMMORTAL TRUTHS 



lower things alone: who shall be concerned with the 
question, “What shall I have therefor?” whether it be 
the individual or nation that ask the question. Be with 
them. All who are seeking selfish advantage, somehow 
be with them. And may it be that in austere silence 
the soul may hear the Divine question, “What shall it 
matter if thou gain the whole world and lose thy soul?” 

Help us, again we pray. May we all go home thank¬ 
ful that we have talked with God; may we go home 
larger in outlook, grander in determination, and more 
beautiful in spirit. 

And may the week on which we have entered prove 
itself a holy week. May we be kept from selfishness, 
may we be kept from impurity, from harshness of 
judgment and from foolishness of words. May we be 
truly, more than ever, sons and daughters of God, and 
so may the fruit of our lives be an example of the 
meaning of our faith. And may Christian nations this 
day so resolve that they may be an example of Chris¬ 
tianity, and may all denominations vie with one another 
in being worthy of their profession. 

Again we await Thy guidance, we shall not wait in 
vain. Amen. 

I take, this morning, the subject suggested to me, “The 
Immortal Truths of Christianity.” 

It is a commonplace to talk now of the shrinkage of 
the world, but despite its being commonplace, it is useful 
very often to remember the fact. The last hundred years 
has seen tremendous changes in our thoughts as regards 
the world. Distances have shrunk almost alarmingly. I 
was reading, the other day, Boswell’s “Johnson,” and I 
found that it took them somewhere between nine and 
twelve hours to travel from Glasgow to Edinburgh, a 
distance of forty-nine miles. And when they went to¬ 
gether on their tour of the Hebrides they were sent off as 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


184 

though they were going to a distant planet, and when they 
returned safely they were almost regarded as miracles. 

I can remember, even in my lifetime, how a journey was 
a tremendous thing, and if any one from our own village 
at home thought of going to America, well, we said 
“Good-bye'’ and never expected to see them any more; 
they had dropped out of existence. The world was big 
as regards distances one hundred years ago, or fifty or 
thirty years ago. To-day we think nothing of journey- 
ings, we think nothing of a family having the different 
members thousands of miles apart. Practically speaking, 
the world is not much larger now than a good sized 
county used to be. 

And, similarly, with this shrinkage of distances there 
has been a change in our thinking, and especially in our 
thinking as regards the various religions of the world. 
We all can remember, even the younger ones here, when 
it was a question of Christianity first, and all other 
faiths were simply nowhere. Christianity was life, all 
others were death. We were very arrogant as regards 
our claims and we never dreamed of being humble, be¬ 
cause we had the light and others were in the darkness. 
That has changed. We now recognize a community, if 
you might put it so, of religions. We now recognize that 
there are many faiths, one of which we acknowledge as 
Christianity, and we very humbly begin to wonder what 
there is about our faith that other faiths have not got: 
what we have that they have not; what we can give that 
they need to receive. 

The other day, I was reading an article on climbing 


IMMORTAL TRUTHS 185 

Mt. Washington in winter, and the writer gives a picture 
of the climber. On his back there was a rope, snow- 
shoes, creepers, and extra garments., The snowshoes 
were for certain stages of the journey; in other stages 
they were useless. The creepers were for a certain awk¬ 
ward corner; everywhere else they were useless. Each 
article and each provision for the climb was for one set 
of circumstances; in other circumstances they were of no 
use. Now, it is something like that when we think of 
our great faiths. Take our Christianity. There have 
been certain ways of considering it, that have been use¬ 
ful at the time, for which we have no further use. The 
Greeks had their presentation of it, which Was useful 
at the time, and which we have very largely in the first 
chapter of St. John’s Gospel. Then our Latin friends 
had their phase of it, which was useful for the time. 
The Reformation friends had their phase of Christianity, 
which was useful for the time. 

But our question this morning is not what is tempo¬ 
rary, not what simply answers for a certain fashion of 
thinking. But what is there in our faith, compared with 
other faiths, that is immortal? What have we in the 
Christian faith that apparently, altogether disregarding 
time, and disregarding fashion, and even disregarding 
race—what is there in our faith that will live and will 
always find itself useful to mankind? Now, that is a 
very difficult question to answer. What have you in 
your faith that will be of help, apparently, in every con¬ 
dition of life and in every civilization? 

We all recognize that races pass, we all know that 


i86 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


nations pass, we all know that quite differing types of 
mankind appear. Now, whatever happens, what is there 
in our faith of which we can say, “Well, this, at any rate, 
will abide; this, at any rate, will be a blessing under any 
and all circumstances ?” 

Supposing you can imagine, or supposing you try to 
imagine, a conference of really devout followers of all 
races and religions. I do not mean theists only,—devout 
men of every faith. Suppose you imagine them sitting 
around a table and discussing what, in their opinion, will 
last and is necessary. What could you say for Chris¬ 
tianity? Of course, you would not say anything about 
denominationalism; that is not big enough. You would 
not say much about the phases of theology, for they 
change in changing days. I doubt if you would say 
much about national characteristics. You would leave all 
those on one side; they aren’t big enough. Now, what 
are the big questions, or, rather, the big phases of our 
faith, that you consider will last not alone in this century, 
but throughout the centuries? For many weeks I have 
been trying to answer that question to my own satisfac¬ 
tion. And it is very difficult. Finally, I found three 
phases given by Harnack in his book “What is Chris¬ 
tianity?” and they seem to satisfy me more than any¬ 
thing I have ever seen stated. I will take them, there¬ 
fore, this morning, as the Immortal Truths that we have 
in Christianity. He says they are as follows: 

First, the Fatherhood of God; second, the infinite value 
of the soul; third, the higher righteousness through life. 
I will repeat them: the Fatherhood of God, the infinite 


IMMORTAL TRUTHS 187 

value of the soul, the higher righteousness through life. 

Now let us take each one. 

First, the Fatherhood of God. As I have often said, 
and as you well know, men are always wondering about 
God and always trying to get some form or image that 
satisfies their wondering. At one time, men said, “He 
is a ruler, a mighty ruler”; the friends who lived around 
the Eastern Mediterranean, the Hebrews, the Mohamme¬ 
dans, took that stand—He is a mighty ruler. Then, 
others say He is a mystical influence. Probably owing 
to the rise of this faith in the mountains, the Hindus took 
this stand—a mystical, mighty influence. According to 
surroundings and history men make their picture of what 
they think God is like. Amidst those varying pictures 
Jesus paints one absolutely different. You know how he 
painted the Great Power. He always called Him 
“Father,” and his life was altogether colored by that 
faith and that trust in the Father. Jesus said, “Behind 
life there is a helper who cares, a helper who loves, a 
parent who loves to the death.” And we have that 
wonderfully beautiful picture of the prodigal son, as we 
always call it, which is not simply a picture of the son, 
but is more truly a picture of the father, and of what 
God was like in the eyes of Jesus. 

I wonder if that is not one of the phases that will stand. 
It will be a difficult matter to make it stand, for as far as 
I can read the future, the more we learn of might, the 
more marvellous it will appear and probably the more 
ordered it will appear. And as I look into the future and 
wonder what will take place in the next two or three hun- 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


188 

dred years, I think I can see that men will find it more and 
more difficult to believe that the Great Power that is 
guiding the marvels of life cares—loves—He is a Father. 
But I cannot think that men can lose that side. We need 
the views that we get from others. We need to re¬ 
member, as our friends from Northern India taught us, 
the mystical wonder of that Power. We need to re¬ 
member, as the Hebrews taught us, the great, governing 
might of a'Ruler. 

I was reading, last night only, a description by Carlyle 
of his father. He said his old father used to say every 
night at the close of his prayer, “Give us to be ready 
for death, judgment, eternity.” You can hardly imag¬ 
ine anybody praying like that to-day, in those austere 
terms. Carlyle’s father got his God from the Hebrew 
Bible. We need that phase of it, but I cannot help but 
think men will need more than anything else that feeling 
that God also loves—that He is our Father in Heaven. 

That is one of the things that I think—or one of 
the thoughts of Christianity that I think—will be 
abiding. 

The second thought is the infinite value of the soul. 
Of course, we measure our soul largely according to our 
measurement of God. If God be a mysterious Might, 
we, probably, like the Hindus, wish to be absorbed in that 
majestic Might. They seek for absorption in that great 
Power and the soul has fulfilled its end when it is ab¬ 
sorbed. If, like the Semitic races, the Hebrews and 
Arabs, we think of the great, mighty Ruler, naturally we 
think of men as subjects—obedient servants of the Most 



IMMORTAL TRUTHS 


189 

High, and our desire is that we should be submissive to 
our Ruler. Jesus took another attitude: “I pray that 
they may all be one” with the Father, “as we are one.” 
The soul, then, was Divine. Each man and woman had 
within a spark of the Heavenly fire. Each man and 
woman because of that was a child, a loved child. 

And you know how Jesus dwelt on the idea of value— 
the “losts,” and the rejoicing when the losts were found 
again. You know that chapter of the finding of the lost, 
and “there was joy in the heavens when the lost was 
found.” The soul was so valuable that even Heaven 
rejoiced when the soul came to itself. And then you 
remember often, “What does it matter if a man gain the 
whole world and lose his soul?” 

In each man, in each woman, there is something that 
is Divine, so worthy that it is a part of God, so worthy 
that it is, as you might say, a bit of Divinity. That was 
the idea of Jesus as regards mankind—“Ye are the sons 
and daughters of God.” Will that last? When the 
races, forgetting their enmities, gather together, will that 
be a message worth while? Will that be a message that 
will sweep over the centuries? Man is God’s child and 
within him there is that which is Divine, and that within 
is the most precious thing in the world. All the world 
is as nothing compared with that within man which links 
him to God. I can imagine that that will have something 
that will appeal to the yellow races, to the black races, 
to the white. I can imagine there is something in that 
bigger than any nationality. I think it would be well to 
say to any man, no matter what his upbringing, “You are 



THE HILLS OF GOD 


190 

a child of God and your soul within is the most valuable 
possession in life. It does not matter what else you get, 
unless you find that, you have not found life. The 
infinite value of the human soul. 

Then there comes the third, higher righteousness 
through life. I hesitate—I hesitate a great deal before 
I speak of this. We are now getting on to the line of 
conduct as one of the assets of our faith, and I dare 
hardly speak of it. The past few years have shown, I 
think, that the so-called Christian races have no higher 
standard of conduct than others. I do not know what I 
should say on this score were I a missionary and speak¬ 
ing to some Eastern thinker. I do not know what I 
could say. I think I should feel very much like the 
picture that Jesus drew. I think I should prefer to enter 
into my own private room and say, “Father, I have 
sinned and am no more worthy to be called Thy son.” 
But, of course, all religions have this difficulty. Every 
religion has a mountain peak that no one has scaled, every 
religion has an ideal that no one has yet reached. And 
so with our faith. We have an ideal of conduct that we 
have not yet reached. We are far—yes, very far from the 
summit. But what is our ideal of conduct? It is the 
one very largely that Jesus pictured. First, it is an ideal 
—ideal Divine. “Ye are the sons of God, act like sons. 
Ye are Divine, act like that, looking ever to God and 
remembering ever your parentage.” 

The one drawback that often I find in reading a biog¬ 
raphy is that the first three or four pages have always been 
genealogical, and of course I find, and you find, that every 


IMMORTAL TRUTHS 


191 

person prides himself on his genealogical tree. That is 
all right if it makes him act the nobler and grander. If 
a Cecil can say, “I am a Cecil, for generations my fore¬ 
bears have been servants of their land. I will give my¬ 
self to my country,” that is all right. You or I can 
say, “I am a son or a daughter of God; I must act ac¬ 
cordingly, bearing in mind my parentage.” And then the 
conduct is included on the human side. “As I am a child 
of God, so is every one else. I must act accordingly. I 
must act as one of a great family/’ Nationalities and 
races make no difference. We are all sons and daughters 
and must act in that relationship. I say we have never 
done it yet, but is not that one of the contributions that 
we can perhaps make to the universal life, of the picture 
that we are all children of one Divine home? 

Such are three, to me—three of the gifts of Chris¬ 
tianity to universal life. The Fatherhood of God, the 
infinite value of the soul, righteousness through parent¬ 
age—if you like to put it so, or through life. 

Will you think over others, if you can? But, most of 
all, will you bear this responsibility in mind? Distances 
separate less and less, and races will come more and more 
face to face. Races will more and more measure up each 
other. Religions will stand shoulder to shoulder and will 
more and more measure up each other. The age of isola¬ 
tion has gone completely. The Hindu will stand and look 
into your face and then he will watch your life. Your 
claims will be nothing. Your contribution to mankind 
alone will be considered. Are we sensible of this respon¬ 
sibility? 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


192 

I have heard it said that America did splendidly when 
she gave back the money from the Boxer Rebellion, when 
she gave it back after she had taken out what was 
necessary to repair the evil done. Do you remember, at 
the same time the Buddhists of Japan would not even 
take enough to pay for the damage? They said, “We 
went into that country as a duty, of our own freewill. 
You have no business to have to pay for it, we will stand 
all of it.” The Buddhist even went one better than the 
Christian in that. And you remember other phases of 
that Rebellion not nearly so notable. 

We have got to the day when we stand face to face and 
we have to prove that we have that which will bless man¬ 
kind. What I love more than anything else is the feeling 
that when I talk of a Father I have something infinitely 
valuable, when I talk of the soul I have something in¬ 
finitely valuable, and when I think of conduct as out¬ 
lined by Jesus I have something infinitely valuable. 
But when I have told all that, I have then got to live it 
out, not simply as an individual but also as a member of 
a nation. God grant to us Christian nations a change 
in our life, a change in our international conduct. May 
the day dawn ere long when we shall in our international 
life live out the immortal truths of our faith. 

Let us pray. 

< Help us, Father, as Thy children to live according to our 
birth and family. Help us more and more continuously to 
remember our responsibilities, and may we ever so live that 
men may be drawn towards our Great Father. Amen. 


CHANCE AND DESERTS 


Heavenly Father, grant that on this day there may be 
visions of Thyself vouchsafed to men. In the comparative 
quietude and cessation from toil may men see visions and 
dream dreams, and may it be that many will declare in their 
own hearts, “Lo, God is here!” 

For a few hours may the turmoil, the anxiety and the 
search after things seen be forgotten and in numberless 
places may the eyes of men, as it were, be opened and may 
they see that which so often is unseen. May the sanctuaries 
especially be holy to the hearts of the worshippers, and in 
the minds of worshippers may it be known that angels are 
ascending and descending, and may many vows be made 
to-day to leave behind lower satisfactions and to seek after 
higher attainments. May there be in every sanctuary an 
earnest, faithful service, and also, in answer, a soul-satisfac¬ 
tion. And in all places else may it be that there may be 
visions, perhaps some seemingly by chance and some as a 
climax of long desires. May there be over the world, for a 
time, a Divine mood, a Divine longing and a Divine satisfac¬ 
tion. For a time, may the peace of God which passeth all 
understanding dwell richly in the hearts of men and women. 

May the governments of men forget their scheming, may 
the nations of men forget their selfishnesses, may the rulers 
forget what seems likely to bring popularities, and, for a 
time, may there be a hush, a sincere search after the real 
things that mean life. May this thus be God’s day, when 
God’s ways are considered and when God’s ways are desired. 

And so may this day have an influence, a great influence, 
on the days of the week on which we have entered. May the 
influence be seen in a greater longing for peace, in a greater 
willingness for sacrifice, in a forgetfulness of our rights, 
and a remembrance of the word Duty. May there be a dif- 

i93 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


194 

ferent atmosphere throughout the whole week because of the 
holiness of this day. 

Help us all, so that with heart and with soul, we may spend 
a day with the best things. Amen. 

I want to ask you to think over those words out of 
the story of Jacob, Genesis, chapter xxvii, verse 16: 
“Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not,” 
As you know, there are two stories running right through 
the Old Testament, an earlier, and what you might call 
a later—editorial comment. The first story of Jacob, 
the older, says that he cheated Esau and then had to run 
away. That, being the older, probably is the truer. 
The second story says that the mother was anxious about 
the marriage of Jacob and persuaded the father to send 
him away to marry a woman of their own clan or tribe, 
a cousin, and then the editor adds that story, which is so 
attractive, of Jacob’s dream. It is a story that is very 
much like all the stories that gather around the saints. 
It is probably a later story that gathered around Jacob 
when he became a national hero. It is just the type of 
story that was likely to gather around a Saint. Jacob 
dreamed that he saw the angels ascending and descend¬ 
ing. And then, if you remember, when he awoke he said, 
“God is here, and I knew it not.” It seems like—it seems 
almost like—a chance dream and a chance revelation. 

And, this morning, I want to speak of chance in 
that way, and also, later, of deserts that come because we 
deserve them—of things that come by chance and of 
things which we apparently deserve. I take this subject 



CHANCE AND DESERTS 


195 


very largely because of the suggestions that seem to have 
come to me in the Women’s Alliance as we have been 
studying the lives of the Saints. I do not know whether 
you have noticed that in all the Saints, so far, it is said 
that there was a voice that woke the hero to a different 
life, and that set me wondering how many stories of that 
kind there are in connection with the great writers of 
religious thought, and I worked it over and I began try¬ 
ing to collect in my own mind such as I knew. And I 
should like, if I could do it, by wider reading to try to 
extend the list of those who claim to have heard a voice 
and to have seen a sight, and to have had by chance some 
revelation of the Unseen World. 

Now, take just haphazard some of the names you all 
know. Perhaps you, like myself, will be interested to 
follow out others of the same type and theory of thought. 
You all know the story of Paul, as he was then called 
Saul: how, going to Damascus, he saw a sight and heard 
a voice that those about him did not see and did not hear. 
But whatever happened it changed the whole character 
of the man. Paul, then, was one who had that expe¬ 
rience. Augustine, you remember, had it too, when he 
heard a voice saying, “Take and read,” “Take and 
read.” Francis had it when he said a voice told him to 
rebuild that little chapel. Jacob Boehme, whom we are 
going to speak of next time in the Alliance, had it when 
he sat at the cobbler’s bench. He said he saw a gleam of 
light and his life was never the same afterwards. Joan 
of Arc, you remember, heard a voice, and from being a 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


196 

quiet village maiden she became the leader of the troops. 
John Bunyan had it in those lanes of Bedfordshire. 
Later, you remember, he said he also saw a vision. 
George Fox tells the same experiences, on the moors in 
Westmoreland. It is surprising how many of this type 
of writer seemed to have had this peculiar experience. 
In John Wesley’s life he mentions that there were six 
hundred and fifty-two converts in London and he said 
that every one of them mentioned some striking expe¬ 
rience of this kind. Then I have been reading, to fol¬ 
low it up, James’s “Varieties of Religious Experience,” 
and he mentions case after case where it happens, and 
perhaps the most striking was one of the men named 
Ratisbonne, a free-thinking Jew of French extraction. 
He was chatting with a friend, outside one of the 
churches. The friend was trying to convert him, and 
Ratisbonne made nothing but fun of the whole conversa¬ 
tion. He was witty, and turned it to a witty sally. 
Then whilst waiting for the friend he turned and went 
into the church, to pass the time. When his friend came 
back Ratisbonne had seen something. The friend found 
him lying on the floor of the pew, and he became straight¬ 
way a priest. 

Now, I do not know—we cannot understand these 
things. Nobody can tell just what they mean. We can¬ 
not laugh at them. We cannot simply dismiss them and 
say, “O well, they are subconscious experiences.” They 
are there. They undoubtedly have come, they undoubt¬ 
edly have influenced life. And perhaps if we feel a little 
inclined to smile at them, we ought to bear in mind 


CHANCE AND DESERTS 


197 

that similar experiences occur in different walks, not 
simply in the walk of religion. For instance, we know 
in the world of invention a man may toil and toil and 
toil at an invention, then suddenly by a flash of in¬ 
tuition he sees what he ought to do; or a scholar, a 
student, works away at a problem, to find no answer, 
he can see no way of solution, then, perhaps, one night, 
while he lies sleepless, everything becomes quite clear. In 
fact, it is so. Don’t we say when we are wrestling with 
a problem, “Well, let’s sleep on it,” and very often in the 
morning we see a new solution. The same is true of 
poems and writing. You know Matheson, of whom we 
are going to speak in the Women’s Alliance later, had 
one evening almost such an experience, and he sat down 
and wrote in a few minutes that wonderful hymn, “O 
Love that Wilt not Let Me Go.” He said it simply 
came, he never thought about it, he wrote it right straight 
down, as a boy would say, “out of his head.” The 
same is true, time after time, of other writers. You 
read, many a time, how some day they seem to be il¬ 
lumined and they set down the revelation. What does it 
all mean? Is it not true that there is another world be¬ 
sides the world we see, that there is another life besides 
simply the life of touch and taste and smell, and some¬ 
times it seems as though the veil that divided the two 
lives were very thin, as though we could almost peer 
through and see the other life. Or, to change the figure, 
it seems sometimes as though the clouds rend and the sun 
shines through just for a moment. I cannot explain 
these experiences. Nobody can. I am a little like James 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


198 

himself. When he was writing his book he told a friend 
that he longed to be like a certain character in that book, 
who suddenly saw a sign, and became a new man. James 
said he longed to have an experience like that. We can¬ 
not explain it. It seems like, as I have said, a ray of sun¬ 
shine from another world. And it seems, many a time, 
as though they come by chance. Is it chance, or is it 
deserts? Is it a deserved revelation? 

Even in other walks in life we find, as I have said, 
almost revelations, but we find they come—they come 
only to those all ready for them. Let me mention several 
instances. A botanist finds a plant for which others are 
looking. Why does he find it? Because he knows the 
plant’s habits, and he knows where to look. He makes 
a chance find, but it is because he knows a good deal 
of the plant. Or an entomologist finds a rare insect. 
Why? Because he knows the habits of the insect. He 
comes upon it, as it were, by chance, but it is not all by 
chance because he knows what to do. Take the life of 
Pasteur. When he was sent down to South France to 
try to combat a disease that was troubling the silkworm, 
he fought the disease, and at last cured it. And in the 
search he says himself that apparently, as if by chance, 
he tumbled upon the thought that by injecting a slight part 
of the disease he could make the subject immune from the 
disease of the whole. It was his chance, he says. It 
was quite stumbled upon by chance. But he was a 
scholar. He was ready for that revelation. And be¬ 
cause of it, all our operations in our hospitals are 


CHANCE AND DESERTS 


199 

infinitely more successful. It was a chance thought, but 
it was not chance, because Pasteur was ready for it. 

It is the same with an artist. He sees a picture, and 
puts it down, and the world is delighted with it, and 
they say, “Well, we never saw that.” The artist was 
ready to see, and, therefore, he saw. I had a striking 
instance of that in New York. I was talking to an artist 
who had been with Peary, and was with him when Peary 
got home. Peary was very materialistic. He could 
naturally see nothing except his expedition. He lived 
for the expedition, and he could not see anything else. 
One day the artist saw a beautiful glow of light over the 
ice. He went and sat, although it was far below zero, 
he went and sat back of the ship, painting the glow of 
light over the ice. Peary went up to him and said, “What 
in the world are you doing, with your back to the ship? 
What are you painting that way?” Evidently, Peary 
thought he ought to be turning the other way and paint¬ 
ing the ship. The artist said, “I am painting, or trying 
to paint, the beautiful light,” and Peary saw it. The 
artist could see the beauty; he was ready for it. And 
you can see the picture he painted, in the art gallery, to¬ 
day, in New York. 

It is chance in one sense, but it is a desert, a deserved 
experience, in the other. 

Now, all this I have taken because I want to speak of 
the experience in a religious sense. The same law holds 
good in your and my spiritual experience. What we get 
or receive in our spiritual life may seem to come by a 


200 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


flash, just as the vision, say, of George Fox. All those 
visions come, apparently, by chance, but they come be¬ 
cause we are prepared. You know the Old Testament 
stories abound in these experiences. Moses retiring on 
the mountain and asking to see God; Jacob, when an old 
man, wearied with life, wrestling all night with God ; the 
writer of the Book of Job making his hero say, “Oh that 
I knew where I could find Him!” The Old Testament 
is full of those stories. And our lives are just as full. 
I do not believe there is a man anywhere who, some time 
or other, does not long to see behind the veil, to know 
the explanation of the hidden life. At some time or 
other, we all have that longing. How can we find it? 
It may come—it may come in a dream like Jacob’s. It 
may seem to come by a sudden revelation, but it will no.t 
come even in that way unless we are prepared for it. 
I never admired the man Jacob very much, but we all 
know that he was a man who thought a good deal about 
the inward hidden life. And his revelations came be¬ 
cause of that thinking. Unless we think of the secrets 
of the spiritual life, we shall never find them. There 
may seem to be a chance, but the chance comes only to 
those who deserve the chance. And I want to speak very 
briefly of several ways of earning, as it were, earning 
that insight into the higher life. 

We are all differently situated. What is to me a 
spiritual lesson may not be at all one to you. What is 
to me a way to grow may not be the way to another. 
We all are differently placed. There is James, who finds 


CHANCE AND DESERTS 


201 


God through philosophy, others find God after a proven 
life, others by a certain conversion. We differ. 

One way that I think is applicable is the way of work. 
Many men and women, to-day, are nervously excited. 
We want to be going and doing. If we are built that 
way, the only way to find God, that I can see, is by do¬ 
ing. “He that doeth the will, shall know the doctrine.” 
If we are actively constituted, the only way to prepare 
for the sights of the Unseen World is by activity, by 
service. 

The second way is by battling. Battling—fighting. 
It may be, fighting temptations; it may be, fighting our 
own tendencies; or, it may be, by fighting pain and dis¬ 
ease. It is surprising how many of the Saints have 
become saintly through fighting. I wonder if Amiel 
would have had half that spiritual dream if he had been 
a strong man. I wonder if he didn’t gain that spiritual 
insight because of fighting consumption. I wonder if 
“Amiel’s Journal” would have been half as good as it is 
but for the physical weakness. If he had been a physi¬ 
cally strong man, we should not have had the Journal. 
He learned by the things he suffered. I wonder if the 
great seers are not often made by the fighting they had 
to do. It may be—I make the suggestion—it may be 
that just the things we hate and fight are the things that 
eventually will be the means of spiritual revelation. 
There are some, therefore, that must find God by fighting. 

Then there are some who find Him by reading quietly 
and thinking. The first type, the active, nervous type, 


202 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


would never find Him through a book. The quieter type 
find Him there. 

Then another way of finding God is in the country— 
through Nature. I think this is the way that I find Him 
best, in the quiet beauty of the woods, in the silence of 
the desert, in the stretches of the moorland. I sometimes 
feel that without those I should never have deep religious 
experiences. 

Ernest Thompson Seton tells a delightful story of an 
old savage. Seton was very fond of this savage, and 
took him to New York to show him the sights. He 
took him across Brooklyn Bridge; he took him on 
Broadway, with brilliant, glaring lights; he took him on 
the underground railway, on the elevated, and then 
finally took him to the Grand Central Station. And 
when they were standing in that beautiful entrance hall 
Seton turned to the savage, and said, “What do you 
think of New York?” The savage’s reply was, “We 
don’t bridge rivers as you do, we don’t have the glare 
of light to obscure the stars as you do, we don’t go 
over the earth and under it as you do, but we have 
peace of mind. We have peace of mind.” A wonderful 
reply to me—peace of mind, because in the country, 
perhaps, that is another way of finding God. 

Then, there is another way. In solitude. Not neces¬ 
sarily in the country, but by one’s self. When Seton 
told that story he was in the presence of a well known 
African missionary, and the missionary said, “Well, I 
could tell you a story very like that. I didn’t often talk 
about England when in Africa, but one day I began 


CHANCE AND DESERTS 


203 

to boast a little about England. I was going home, and 
so I began to boast a little to the Chief about what I 
should find when I got home to London. And as I 
told him about the things I thought of, how when I 
got to my house I could touch a button and flood the 
house with light, how I simply had to turn a faucet for 
water when I wanted it, how there was heat all over 
the house, and all the various things of our present-day 
civilization, then I said to the old Chief, ‘What do you 
think of it all?’ The Chief said, ‘Well, I don’t know, 
except remember this when you get back, that to be 
better off does not mean to be better.’ ” To be better 
off does not mean to be better. There is a great truth 
there. It is not what we surround ourselves with that 
will lead us upwards. I think it is largely what there is 
inside of us. And those of us who can be contented to 
be by ourselves, not thinking of the things outside very 
often, reach very near the gates of Heaven. 

These are five ways that I think reach toward the 
upward land. There are many others. All I want to 
urge is that you try one of them, it does not matter 
which. I know you are longing for a view of the Un¬ 
seen. I know that you would like to understand more of 
the Unseen World. It comes only by deserts. If we 
deserve the knowledge, we shall find it. “He that seek- 
eth, findeth.” Let me urge you again to seek, for it is 
infinitely worth while. Life is not worth living unless 
this is one chamber of a great Divine mansion. If I 
felt that life began when I began my life and ended when 
I ended mine, I should feel like Omar Khayyam, that 


204 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


God ought to take our forgiveness for His creation. 
Life is not worth living if it simply consists of what we 
can see. But if it be part of a wonderful home, if 
“trailing clouds of glory” behind us we come from God 
who is our eternal home, and we find that we enter 
another room of our Father’s house; and if all the pain 
and sorrows and trials are simply part of an education, 
if here we are making a Divine soul, if this is simply one 
grade of life, it is worth having. I can understand it 
then, and I want to know more of that life of which we 
are a part. Don’t you feel like that? 

We are part of a great whole. What the whole will 
be nobody knows. We understand that the great planets 
and the great worlds above are born and die. We under¬ 
stand that everything created is born and passes, from a 
soap-bubble to a planet; but if the passing is simply a 
moving on to another stage better still, it is explicable, and 
explicable so alone. I believe that all is simply a part of 
the whole, and, therefore, I want to know as much as I 
can of the whole, and I want to see it. You feel like that. 
“Seek, and ye shall find”; perhaps, some day, by a sud¬ 
den beauty, or perhaps only by a continued search. Step 
by step you will climb the heights, slowly and painfully 
you will leave the valley behind, but all the time you will 
be gaining a wider vision. God grant this widening ex¬ 
perience. May you and I grow in spiritual strength and 
beauty. 

Let us pray. 

Heavenly Father, lead us onward, lead us upward. May 
our life be one enlarging life. Every day may our vision 


CHANCE AND DESERTS 


205 


be more extended, and the longer we live the more may we 
know Divine sweetness and Divine providence. May each 
day be a day of growth. If, perchance, some days are days 
of pain, if some days we revert, forgive us, and may every 
failure but lead to increased effort. May we grow in gra¬ 
ciousness and in the knowledge of the love of God, our 
Father. Amen. 


THANKSGIVING AND ITS RESPON¬ 
SIBILITIES 


Holy Spirit, we would come into touch with Thee, listen¬ 
ing to Thy voice, which speaks in the silence of our lives, 
which speaks through the assembly, the congregation of our 
friends, and which speaks in the associations of the day. 
We would listen to this voice, this day. We would better 
understand its message, and we would seek for strength to be 
obedient to the voice. 

Help us in this, our morning’s devotion, so that we may 
be really assisted towards the height of manhood and woman¬ 
hood that we wish to attain. May each waiting soul be 
blessed. Amen. 

As you all know, we are this week celebrating Thanks¬ 
giving, and to-day I want to speak on the topic of 
“Thanksgiving.” 

To me one of the most remarkable memories of the 
early Pilgrim Fathers is the holding of their first Thanks¬ 
giving service. Their winter, as you know, had been a 
trying one. They had lost, practically, half of their 
number. Then there came a new contingent from across 
the water, which contingent they expected would bring 
food and machinery; instead of which they landed with¬ 
out anything and were simply an added burden. The 
outcome was anything but rosy. The days ahead were 
dark and depressing. Everything seemed to be almost 

gone, and yet we find them thanking God for His 

206 


THANKSGIVING 


207 


gifts. It is a remarkable picture rendered possible only 
by their theology. Those early Pilgrims believed ab¬ 
solutely in the sovereignty of God. God was to them a 
great, awful, sublime being. They themselves were 
nothing, they merited nothing, what they received they 
received not from their deserts but from the goodness of 
that great God. 

We do not care for that theology to-day. It does not 
appeal to us. The old idea of the sovereignty of God we 
leave on one side, and we do not talk about ourselves 
as being utterly unworthy. But we ought to bear this 
in mind, that, strange to say, the ages in history when 
men have talked about their unworthiness have been the 
ages of accomplishment. The men who have said that 
they merited nothing have somehow beaten the men who 
have thought themselves something, all the way through. 
The Pilgrim Fathers said they were worms in the dust, 
but we know that they were real, strong men and women. 

When I was wondering what to say on this topic, I 
thought I would turn to the essayists and see if I could 
get any hints from the modern essays. For some time 
I have been collecting modern essays. I like to read 
them. But when I began to look at book after book I 
could not find a single essay on “thankfulness.” I don’t 
know whether you know any such essay, but I could not 
find one. Then I remembered suddenly that essay of 
Charles Lamb’s on “Grace before Meat,” and I went 
and opened that again and reread it. You know the 
old essay. Lamb speaks about the habit of having grace 
before meat, and he says he cannot understand how it is 


208 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


that that habit is applied to eating. “Why should there 
not be,” says he, “a grace before taking a walk, a grace 
before having a moonlight ramble, a grace before meet¬ 
ing with friends, a grace before opening Shakespeare, 
or reading Milton?” You see Lamb’s idea. But re¬ 
member, Lamb is one hundred years old. Not being 
satisfied with that, I remembered the Harvard Classics. 
So I turned to the Harvard Classics to see if I could 
find anything there on “thankfulness,” and found three 
references. I turned to them, and one was a reference 
to Epictetus, another was a reference to a Psalm, and 
another was a reference to Cato. These were older still, 
you see. There is not one that I know of that is modern 
that speaks of that humble aspect of thankfulness. It 
is out of fashion. The quietest virtues are just for the 
present submerged. We do not speak about humility. 
One man said to me once: “I hope to goodness you will 
never preach on that text, ‘The meek shall inherit the 
earth.' ” We do not like that way of thinking to-day. 

But, friends, there is something in it yet. I know we 
do not like the idea of the sovereignty of God. We do 
not like to think of God as a great, august ruler. We 
let that go. But supposing we let that go, isn’t there 
something else in life besides what we see, behind the 
beautiful country, behind the whispering woods, behind 
the murmuring waves, behind the active business, be¬ 
hind the love of home? Isn’t there something else? 
Isn’t there another world behind the world we see? 
Aren’t we in our best moments conscious that there is 


THANKSGIVING 


209 

something else in addition to the physical ? There is not 
a person in this Church who has not some time or 
another felt the veil very thin between the seen and the 
unseen. There is something behind, and we all know it 
at times. And from that something comes life’s best. 
You can call that something what you like. I am not 
going to bother about words. You can call it God, if 
you like, you can simply say the Unseen. We won’t 
trouble about words. But coming back to the Unseen, I 
venture to say that all that is worth anything in life 
comes from it. Now that is a great statement. I ven¬ 
ture to say that out of that Unseen the best possessions 
we have come as gifts. 

Let us think together of the things that come. 

We begin thinking first of our country. I am not 
going to boast. I am not going to make any extravagant 
claims. But the country in which we live is unique. It 
is self-supporting to a degree that no other country ever 
has been. It covers all types of climate and therefore 
all types of produce. Those who discovered it had no 
idea of its greatness. As you remember, Columbus 
thought he had found a new way to the East Indies. He 
had no idea what he had found. We are apart from old 
feuds. We are cut off from old, conflicting antagonisms. 
There are no enemies at our gates. We have no dread 
of any invader. Think how different that is from the 
countries in Old Europe, who have always behind their 
consciousness the fear of an invading army. And with¬ 
out any boasting I say that no country has ever had the 


210 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


riches that this country has, and yet neither you nor I 
earned those riches. They are a gift. They are ab¬ 
solutely a gift. Isn’t that so? 

Then take, secondly, our opportunities. Our country 
is a gift, our opportunities are a gift. The first 
thing that struck me when I began to live in America 
was that fact of opportunity. I had been used, of 
course, to the old-fashioned way of living, the old 
set, staid way, and when friends suggested they call 
on us I was embarrassed. We were living in a very 
humble way, and at last I said to one of them, ‘‘Well, we 
should be very glad to see you by and by, but we are 
not ready yet to receive visitors.” He knew what I 
meant and he burst into a hearty laugh. “Well,” he said, 
“that is all right. There is not anybody living in El 
Paso to-day who was not living like that once. We all 
began like that.” My dentist came into El Paso as a 
hobo. My lawyer, who is one of the leading men in El 
Paso to-day, walked right across Old Mexico. He could 
not afford to do anything else. You can ask man after 
man. They all began like that. And there was no fear 
about it. If they didn’t do very well at one thing, they 
did something else. It was a new life to me altogether. 
The opportunity was unique. And isn’t that opportunity 
a gift? We haven’t earned it, we haven’t paid for it. 
It has come to us free. 

Then our health—our health. I know we cannot have 
it without care, which we too often refuse to take, by 
care we can preserve or enlarge our health. But what a 
narrow line that is—what a narrow line there is between 


THANKSGIVING 


211 


life not worth living- and life abundant! When I look 
back on the early married life of people I almost tremble 
at the narrowness of that line. How many fathers and 
mothers, say with two or three little children, would miss 
disaster if ill health came. I wonder sometimes what 
would have happened to my family if I had been thrown 
on one side after, say, five years of married life. And all 
new homes are like that. There is just a slender line be¬ 
tween prosperity and dire poverty. What keeps us right? 
Isn’t our health, after all, a gift from somewhere? 

Now I am going to come to some things, perhaps, that 
might be little apt to be classed as gifts. Take our abil¬ 
ity. I know we can cultivate it. I know we can enlarge 
it. I know by scholarship and education we can enlarge 
our abilities, but we are only building on a foundation 
that is there. Out West—take another illustration out 
there, when we went there there was nearly always a 
shortage of water in July and August and we lost our 
crops. The Mexicans simply shrugged their shoulders 
and said, “Well, it is the Will above.” But the Teutons 
and Anglo-Saxons got their heads together and before 
long a great lake was built one hundred miles up the 
valley and we had no shortage of water. The Northern 
European had initiative and ability. Where did he get 
it? He had cultivated it to an extent, but where did he 
get the foundation on which to build ? Was it not an 
inherited gift very largely? You cannot make a man 
unless you have something to make him of. Mr. Thomp¬ 
son would tell you you cannot make a scholar unless 
there are some brains to start with. There is something 


212 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


at the bottom of all ability. Where does it come from? 
Isn’t it there waiting, deep down? Isn’t it a gift? 

Then let us go further still. Take our real pleasures. 
I mean the most pure and abiding pleasures of life—a 
walk in the country, a climb up the mountains, a breath 
of moorland air, our lungs filled with the breath of 
• ocean, books, libraries, the most abiding joys, where did 
they come from? Neither you nor I could make the 
mountains or the sea, we have not the ability to write the 
books. They come to us. They are placed at our feet. 
They are gifts, after all. 

Then again take goodness and evil. Now I am tread¬ 
ing on very thin ice—goodness and evil. You remember 
the saying of that old bishop when he saw a man going to 
prison: “There, but for the grace of God, I should be 
the one to go.” In the Old English ballad there occur 
these lines: 

“There sleeps in Shrewsbury jail to-night 
Or wakes as may betide, 

A better lad, if things were right, 

Than most that sleep outside.” 

Is that true, the lad who “sleeps in Shrewsbury jail” is 
he a better lad than the lad who sleeps in his mother’s 
home? The old ballad goes on to say the difference is 
because of circumstances. I know that is dangeious. 
But how many have gone wrong by a chance meeting, a 
chance companion, or by chance opportunities! And 
how many have kept right because the temptation did not 
come at a certain moment. Do you remember that old 




THANKSGIVING 


213 


story of the war? A sergeant was found running away 
in fright, deserting his post. He was tried by court 
martial and condemned to be shot, but before the sentence 
could be carried out there came a sudden attack of the 
enemy and every man was needed. The sergeant was 
ordered to take his place in line again because of dire 
necessity, and he shone out above them all and received 
the V. C., the Victoria Cross. Why was it? At one 
moment something gave way inside—he was a coward 
just for the moment; then in another opportunity he was 
the bravest of the brave. Sometimes I cannot help but 
think it is just that opportunity, just that something 
giving way, that defeats the good. And if the bad 
escape us, then we need to be very humble, for very often 
the happening is something out of our control. 

Then, again, there are the darker things of life, and 
I am going to class these as gifts. We have all known 
sorrow, we have all known disaster, we have all known 
pain, we have all known separation and death. We 
would not have chosen them. They came to us, and 
when we look back on the worth that they have wrought 
on our character we regard them only as gifts. Isn’t it 
so? I know the many things you would do without if 
you could, but haven’t they been gifts? Haven’t they 
made you better men and gentler women ? Haven’t they 
made you stronger characters, after all? 

Then there are “memories.” Nobody can explain our 
memories. Every time I smell sawdust I go back in an 
instant to Russia, because I spent a lot of time there in 
the saw-mills. It doesn’t matter what I am doing, the 


214 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


very smell of wood takes me back. And isn't it so all 
day long? Some little incident happens and you are 
carried away. You see, perhaps, a daffodil and you are 
carried away to a wooded slope. You see a little shell 
and you are carried away to a delightful voyage you once 
had. Where does memory come from? We don’t 
know. It is a gift. 

Now, have I over-emphasized? Is it not real that the 
best things of life, from our country right down to our 
personal sorrows, right through the whole line, is it not 
true that they come—they are gifts? 

What should be our attitude ? I say that we have lost 
the attitude of thankfulness. Shan’t we come back to 
it? You can, as I said, class God as you like, but can¬ 
not we, should not we, go back to that old idea of 
thankfulness? 

“Let us with a gladsome mind 
Praise the Lord, for He is kind, 

For His mercies aye endure, 

Ever faithful, ever sure. 

“All things living He doth feed, 

His full hand supplies their need, 

For His mercies aye endure, 

Ever faithful, ever sure.” 

Isn’t that true? 

For a time, let us be humble, let us be reverent, and 
then let us go further still and for what we have re¬ 
ceived, in addition to being thankful, consecrate those 
gifts to God. Our country, given to us, let us labor to 
make it still more God’s country; our ability, given to us, 


THANKSGIVING 


215 

let us further increase it; and our virtues, often given, 
let us make still more virtuous. 

We thank God for His gifts, and we pour them back 
at His feet, and promise to use them as becometh a gift. 

Let us pray. 

We thank Thee, Father, for the many gifts which are 
ours. Help us to take them in humble reverence, and culti¬ 
vate them with untiring diligence, so that more and more we 
may be worthy of that which comes to us, so that that which 
comes may be still further beautified. 

Help us to be Thy humble servants. Amen. 


THE INSPIRATION OF LONELINESS 


We thank Thee, Father, for the times of communion, for 
the times when we can separate ourselves from the noises 
of life and in the solitude touch God. We are thankful 
for the numerous times when we have known this quiet com¬ 
munion, we are thankful for the times when we see, as it 
were, God, when we hear Him speaking, and when our 
hearts truly respond. Grant unto us that these moments 
may be more and more frequent. Help us to seek Thee 
more often, and so help us to become stronger within and, 
therefore, more helpful without. 

May this day be marked as the day of quiet communion. 
May we all, to-day, so experience the Divine Presence that 
we shall almost be compelled to say, as the old-time teacher 
said, “Such experiences as it is unlawful to speak of.” May 
we know in our hearts that we are with God. And so may 
the day help us to be truly the men and women that stand be¬ 
fore us as ideal. May we reach nearer to our ideal in all 
things. 

May the day help us in meeting our difficulties, in carry¬ 
ing our burdens, in walking, perhaps, in sorrow, and in the 
times of quiet loneliness. 

May the day help us when we are fighting temptation, 
when we are fighting the difficulties of the lower and trying 
to be obedient to the invitations from the higher. 

May the day in every way be God’s day to us. And like¬ 
wise we pray that it may be so to all. May all mankind, 
to-day, in some way feel God. If the day be spent in excite¬ 
ment or, perhaps, unworthy aims, may there be some whisper 
of holiness, some suggestion of worthiness. 

Be with all who are in office, guiding the affairs of man¬ 
kind. Be with all who seem lost in the crowd. Be with all 
who are prosperous, all who seem to be failing. Be with 

216 


THE INSPIRATION OF LONELINESS 217 

all who have a work to do, and those who do not yet seem to 
have found their tasks. 

In the homes, in the highways, in the villages and in the 
cities alike may God’s voice be heard and may God’s men 
and women be recalled to their noble heritage. 

Be with us as we separate for the season. If it be that 
we travel, may God be present wherever we be. If we 
climb the mountains, may we hear God there. If we walk 
through the woods, may they be temples of the Most High. 
If we tread the sands by the sea, may there God be touched. 
If we travel over the sea great distances, may we discern the 
Almighty. In whatsoever home we spend the days may 
God be near. If we remain toiling, doing necessary tasks 
and sometimes wearied because of them, in the weariness 
may God lay His hand upon our brow and may we gain new 
strength and new hope. May each day be God’s day. May 
each experience, whether it be hard or easy, be an experience 
in which we find the help of the Father. 

And so as the days come and go may we all grow in the 
things that are worthwhile and may we outgrow the things of 
no lasting account. And if it be that we gather together 
again in the fall, may we come having seen new visions, with 
added physical strength, with more fullv developed mind, 
and with a more lasting determination to live the life that is 
our duty. Amen. 

You will remember that I read three extracts from 
the life of Moses, Exodus iii, 1-7; xxiv, 9-18; Deuter¬ 
onomy xxiv, 1-6; that these three extracts represent three 
crises in the life of that old hero, and I want, to-day, to 
speak of the deep meaning in those crises. 

First, when Moses was a young man. Picture to 
yourself a lonely sunrise. Out of, or above the dark¬ 
ness there arises in the east a kind of light, pearly glow. 
Slowly the stars fade, and slowly this pearly light spreads 
towards the zenith. Then the light of pearl gives way 


2l8 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


to the pink, then the pink yields to the ruddy red, and 
then suddenly a golden glow shimmers over everything 
and the higher branches of the desert undergrowth are 
tinged with this golden glory. They are transformed for 
the moment. At one time they seem gray, prickly, 
stubbly undergrowth, then, suddenly, where the light 
touches them, they seem as though afire. “They burned 
with fire, and were not consumed.” And the young man 
sees this sight. He looks! He has seen it hundreds of 
times before, but somehow he is in a certain mood this 
morning, and he sees the glow and stands entranced. 
Amidst the silence it seems as though he heard voices. 
It seems as though the whispering leaves of the morning 
had a tongue, it seems as though he heard his own name 
called by the whispering of the breeze, and he listens. 

Why was he there? As a young man he was edu¬ 
cated in the best knowledge of the day. He lived, 
probably, in one of the finest cities of the world in that 
day. He had all we mean by university education. He 
had all the advantages of a city life. And then, when 
he graduated from school, like so many youths he had an 
enthusiasm for service. Fortunately, when we are be¬ 
tween our “twenties” and “twenty-fives” we are very 
prone to have that enthusiasm. It is one of God’s gifts. 
And he had an enthusiasm for service. He would do 
something for his fellows. And he started the doing. 
The grandest period of life, probably, is when a young 
man or maiden gives himself or herself to “doing.” He 
experienced, however, what many experience—to serve is 
not life-giving, or not equal to saving, to serve does not 


THE INSPIRATION OF LONELINESS 219 

necessarily mean to save, for those whom we would serve 
are often not willing to be saved, those for whom we toil 
to build very often do not recognize our service. The 
hardest task of service is that those whom we serve do 
not appreciate it. And very soon this young man felt 
this lack of appreciation. Probably he had many com¬ 
panions who were toiling with him. Probably they be¬ 
came very radical in their views, as we all do when 
we serve; we see the wrong, we want to right it, we want 
to right it in a day, and we take any violent measures 
to do the righting, and our violent measures are not 
appreciated. By and by this youth and his compan¬ 
ions were involved in trouble, by and by they were 
surrounded by dangers, and by and by the very slaves 
whom they were serving jeered at them and hated them. 

And then what happens? The youth lost heart. 
Fearing, for the time being, for his life, he left the city. 
“Let the mob do what it likes. Let them die, if they 
want to die, they are not worth anything else. Let the 
whole crowd go to the lower region, if they like, it is the 
only region for which they are fit.” And he went out 
into the country, hard, bad-tempered, cynical. 

But there is something in the country that cures cyni¬ 
cism. It is a slow process, it does not come all at once, 
but slowly there is something in God’s country that 
counteracts the effect of God’s cities. And this young 
man by and by began to feel a little less bitter. He 
didn’t get to the point of wanting to serve again, but at 
any rate he got past the point of calling names, and he 
settled down to his country’s work. He cared for the 


220 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


sheep, he cared for the cattle, and as he was caring, 
in the quiet moments he learned to appreciate the beauties 
around him, much as I am certain he hated the sand at 
first, and hated the prickly undergrowth. Many a time 
he cursed the solitude, and then by and by, perhaps on 
some moonlight night, he! began to see beauty, by and 
by he began to feel the silence, and then he began to 
come to a second—as it were—a second development. 
And as I read to you and have spoken to you, one day 
he saw God as he had never seen Him before. And 
the voice said, “Go back, go back! Go back to that 
unthankful city, go back to that despised service, go back 
and take your part.” I can fancy that there was a great 
deal of unwillingness. Perhaps the city seemed attrac¬ 
tive at times, but oh! it seemed hateful also. To leave 
that peace and go into turmoil, to leave that gracious 
quiet and go back into the rude ways of the mob! His 
heart said, “I hate that crowd.” No doubt Moses said, 
“I hate the crowd, I won’t go back.” But by and by 
the quiet prevailed, and Moses went back. 

I mention that because I think it is an experience that 
most of us pass through. We begin to work, we give 
of ourselves. Then we grow weary and we are apt then 
to give up. Young men and women, who are here, I 
know I am going to say something that seems like a 
foolish dream. When you are thinking of your life’s 
tasks, go alone, go away in the silence. For it is only 
as you realize your difficulties and realize in quiet the 
Power that is waiting to help you, it is only thus that 
you will do your life’s work. You will be called upon 


THE INSPIRATION OF LONELINESS 221 


many times to do a great work, you will be called upon 
many a time to be disheartened, then it is only what 
you have in yourself that counts. Finally, it is the 
strength that you have when you are alone that will tell, 
it is individuality that counts. We have had our gradua¬ 
tions, the classes are all through their exercises. The 
youth or the maiden who has graduated worthily has done 
the work in loneliness; there have been hundreds of hours 
of loneliness. Unless those hours have been there, the 
student may have just got through, but not have done 
what ought to have been done, and not gained the life that 
should have been attained. It is only alone that we fight 
our fight and find our strength. Young men and women, 
learn to be alone. For God’s sake, do not so live that 
you are afraid of being by yourself. There is real 
tragedy in life for a man or woman who dares not be 
alone. When you have come to the place when you can¬ 
not be quiet, God help you! Unless you learn to be quiet, 
to sit still, or to be in the country without any one at 
hand, to be with God—quiet—unless you learn that, you 
do not learn the meaning of life. 

I know you might say, “Well, it is all right, but what 
does one do? What can one do?” Unless you know 
what to do, nothing will be done, unless you are saved, 
you will never save any one else, unless you are strong, 
you will never make another strong. Finally, it is what 
you are yourself. And nothing will ever be a substitute 
for the loneliness with God! 

Now let me turn to the second chapter. This time, 
Moses is a middle-aged man. Let us try to see him 


222 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


again. We saw him last at sunrise. Now I think we 
had better try to see him at sunset. This time he is on a 
mountain. Those rocky, bare, stony mountains of the 
desert. He is away on the heights. Probably not a 
bit of green near him. Around him nothing but bare 
tracts. The sun is just falling behind the other hills. 
You remember the description that I read of it. I will 
read it again. There is some real poetry in it. The 
mountains behind, said the description, became sapphire, 
the distant clouds became gold, orange, the hills between 
purple, and on either side the shadows and lights played. 
It was a magical scene, impossible to be seen or realized 
except in bare mountains, when the bare stones respond 
to the changing light of sunset. 

And this middle-aged man sits there. He is weary. 
He has taken up his task. He has led many of the 
oppressed ones out of the city towards the new home, 
out of a country where they were oppressed to a country 
that is going to flow with milk and honey. He has led 
them out—all the way, and he has found it a terribly 
hard task, a terribly unthankful task. It is not easy to 
take, say, a few thousand men and women out of the 
slums of the city and lead them through the country. 
They know nothing about the country, they do not know 
what to do in it. You take a man from the slums and 
put him in the country and what will be the result? 
Moses had a few thousands of that kind to deal with. 
They had had no ideals, and he desired to give them 
ideals. Whenever they got into difficulty they lost heart 
and he had to try to give them courage. When- 


THE INSPIRATION OF LONELINESS 223 

ever they saw a hard, dark time, again, ahead, they said, 
“Well, we wish we had never come. We did know where 
we were going to get the next meal when we were slaves, 
but we don’t know now. Why did you bring us ?” And 
I can imagine many a time the man was terribly angry 
and dreadfully disheartened. And when those days 
came, he had learned as a young man—and here comes 
in the lesson, the value of the lesson—he had learned as 
a young man the meaning of solitude, the meaning of 
communion alone. And when the days were darkest he 
went all by himself away up into the mountains. I 
know when you read the Old Testament account you seem 
to be reading a miracle. It is nothing of the kind. 
It is just an ordinary experience described in Hebrew 
language. He climbed on the mountain, and left the 
crowd, when he was worn out. He sat there and 
watched the sunrise and the sunset. He reclined there 
in the silence, and God spoke again. Whenever we are 
silent, God can speak, and it needs silence sometimes to 
hear the still, small voice. And this middle-aged man 
listened there, and we are told in the story he stayed 
forty days. Never mind the time. He stayed there un¬ 
til he was remade. And then he went back to his task. 

This time I want to speak to the middle-aged men 
here. Many a time life is utterly disheartening, many 
a time things seem destined to go wrong, many a time 
it seems as though we could not be sure of a living, many 
a time it seems as though finally we shall have to write 
failure. The city streets are hot, city men are competi¬ 
tors, everything seems to go the wrong way. Men, I 


224 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


know what it means. But I also know, although per¬ 
haps it may seem foolish—I also know that if I will go 
alone, God will speak. He is never far away, He is al¬ 
ways a loved friend, and directly we be still, He will 
speak. I do not say that He will work a miracle, I do 
not say He will make our business prosperous, I do not 
say He will make everything serene, but I do say that He 
will speak, and as we listen, we shall grow strong, 
and go back to try to do our duty. Moses on the 
mount fought with difficulties, and went back to do his 
duty. 

Now comes the third picture. Moses is an old man, 
worn out. Again, with tottering feet and with probably 
very slow step, he climbed the hills. Evidently, the 
longer he lived, the more he knew that silence is a bless¬ 
ing. And so when he grew old and the journey was 
nearly over, again he went alone. Again it is sunset. 
And as he looks westward he sees the River Jordan, and 
sees its green land adjoining. He sees the far limestone 
cliffs and hills, and then, again, in the distance, he al¬ 
most thinks he can see the ocean. That is the land to 
which he has been guiding. That represents to him his 
whole life’s work. He started out to find this country, he 
has found it, but—it has cost so much that it has killed 
him, he has no more strength left, the last few miles are 
too much for him. He cannot superintend the invasion 
of a new land. He knows what it means, he knows the 
difficulties, and he cannot do it. And he says to himself, 
“I am done, I have given all I have, I am done.” And 


THE INSPIRATION OF LONELINESS 225 

he looks to the setting sun and the golden glow surrounds 
him as he passes hence. 

It seems almost a tragic end. That for which he has 
fought is not for him, that for which he has lived is 
not for him. All his ideals are not to be realized. He 
passes out at sunset and there is no to-morrow of ac¬ 
complishment for him. 

But, after all, it is not tragical. It is not so bad, after 
all. He has done a great thing. He has laid the foun¬ 
dation of a new nation, and out of that new nation life 
for the world is to come, and Jesus, the ideal teacher. 
He does not know it, but so it is. 

The hero has fought and dies as he thinks vanquished. 
But not so. No work that is well done is lost. We may 
die, O' yes, that is quite possible. All heroes die, all 
heroes do kill themselves eventually. That is a necessity. 
And when they have killed themselves, their work seems 
incomplete. Not so. The old man is dying with the 
glow of sunset on his brow, yet it means he is dying with 
a splendid record behind. He has failed, but has suc¬ 
ceeded. He has never crossed the Jordan, but he has 
helped millions of men and women to cross the spiritual 
Jordan of life. 

When our end comes, may we, like him, spend the time 
alone; at last with God, may we lie down and sleep—with 
God close at hand. May human voices, after they have 
done their part, die down, and may the voice of God take 
their place. As we have been in youth with God, as 
in middle-age we meet our difficulties with Him, so at 



22)6 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


death may we pass out in loneliness with God. There is 
a Holy of Holies in every life; without it life is not 
worth living. May you know your Holy of Holies; 
may you oft abide in the sacred place. 

May God speak to you constantly. Unless He does, 
in silence, you will never be the men and women you 
would like to be. 

May you know the blessings of Divine loneliness. 

Let us pray. 

Help us, Father, so that each day we may acquire some 
new grace and defeat some old sin. Each day, help us to 
become more kindly in judgment, more careful in speech, 
and more helpful in deed. Each day, may the failings with 
which we were born be lessened, and each day, may the quali¬ 
ties that we love and desire to become ours increase, and so 
eventually may we be the ideal character of which we dream 
and which we should love to be. 

May many here become saints in God’s great household. 
Amen. 

Our Father, who art in heaven: Hallowed be Thy name. 
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in 
heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us 
our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. 
And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. 
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, 
for ever and ever. Amen. 

May the graciousness of Jesus, the love of the Father, 
and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with us now and 
always. Amen. 


PERSONAL CONSECRATION TO 

SERVICE 


I am sure that the friends will excuse me and feel 
sorry for me in the subject that is allotted to me. I take 
it that it is the hardest subject that could be allotted to 
any one. It almost seems presumptuous. How can any¬ 
one presume to tell another one how to consecrate him¬ 
self or herself to service? Will you therefore excuse 
that seeming presumption as I try to do what the com¬ 
mittee asked me to do—speak on “Personal Consecration 
to Service.” 

It happened to be my lot, my fortune or misfortune, to 
try to plant out about three thousand pear trees on my 
ranch in Texas. We worked very hard for about three 
months, plowing, harrowing, leveling, and then carefully 
arranging a series of ditches all over the land and then 
arranging a wide ditch that should bring in the water. 
We had to have skilled people, surveyors and others, who 
knew just how to lay out the land so that the water could 
be carried all over the soil. When all was done we de¬ 
pended absolutely on the coming of the water. It did 
not rain; the water was brought down through ditches, 
and that water came—we were in Texas—that water 
came from a reservoir away up in New Mexico, two 
hundred and some miles away. And that water in turn 
was gathered up on the hills in little rivulets in Colorado, 




228 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


nearly a thousand miles away. We, down on the plains, 
depended absolutely on those rivulets up in the mountains 
of Colorado. If those rivulets failed to catch the drop¬ 
pings from the heavens all our work would be absolutely 
useless and thrown away. 

Now it seems to me, friends, that in the work we are 
doing we have a somewhat similar instance. You and I 
have been for some time preparing the land. We have 
been arranging our work on these lands around the har¬ 
bor of Boston. When we have done our work to the 
very best of our ability, then we are obliged to wait for 
something, and that something, I take it, is a spiritual 
force that must come from every individual. The gath¬ 
ering cloud up on the hills to me is the individual church 
member. And whatever we may do in machinery, un¬ 
less we gain the force of the individual members, all will 
be useless. 

It is always so, of course. The engine has a small 
chamber where the explosion takes place. The army has 
a small headquarters. The city has a collective office for 
management. The Campaign has a center of force, and 
that is the individual life of every Unitarian. I am 
never afraid of the machinery. If there is one thing that 
I have found out that my newly-adopted country can do, 
it is to arrange machinery. I am not afraid of machin¬ 
ery. We can do that to perfection. I am not afraid of 
money; whenever you have a good cause you can always 
get money without any difficulty. The machinery and 
the money are not hard things to obtain, but individual 
consecration is a different matter. And I am afraid of 


PERSONAL CONSECRATION 


229 


that. Honestly, friends, I am afraid of it. I have 
never been so afraid of anything in my life as I am of 
the few words I am saying now, and I enter on this 
winter's work with a great deal of nervous anxiety. If 
I were going to ask for money I should not mind; if I 
were going to ask for machinery I should not mind, but 
I am asking for personal giving of one’s self to God, and 
that is a very hard thing to do. It is a solemn, serious, 
individual matter that the prophet or the preacher trem¬ 
bles before. 

You remember Isaiah when he was called said, “I can¬ 
not do it, I cannot do it.” And every individual trembles 
before the individual duty that awaits one. 

How can we gain this power, this personal consecra¬ 
tion? How can we be helped to give ourselves as we 
never have before to God, and how can we so toil that 
we may bring other men and women to God? 

Near my home in Texas there was a mountain about 
eight thousand feet high. It was absolutely bare, no 
verdure, because it was in the desert. It was simply in 
places sheer rock. I looked at that mountain every day 
for several years and I longed to climb it. Whenever I 
see a mountain I want to get on the top of it, and I 
wanted to get on the top of that mountain, but I dared 
not. It was dangerous and difficult. I waited three 
years, and then by chance I met a man who said, “I know 
that mountain; I lived on it practically for years. I 
know every canon and gully in it.” And I made in¬ 
quiries and I found it was so. I said, “Will you go with 
me to the top?” “Yes.” And we started out for the 


230 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


top. Once or twice we were in difficulty, but his experi¬ 
ence took us out of the difficulty and he led me safely to 
that summit to a wonderful view. 

You and I are going to say in this Campaign, “Friends, 
let us climb the hills of God,” and the friends whom we 
ask are perfectly justified in turning around and saying, 
“Do you know those hills yourself? Can you guide me 
there? If you want to take me to the higher life, have 
you been there? Do you know all about it?” When 
men and women turn and ask me that I don’t know what 
to say. Friends, when you say to those men and women 
within twenty-five miles of here, “Come with us to God,” 
can you say, “I know, I have been with God; come with 
me; I know the country; I know the hills of Zion; I have 
heard the songs of the Holy City and I have seen the holy 
places. Come with me; it is worth while.” Can you say 
that? If you cannot say it you cannot make a campaign 
for membership. 

Now, friends, it is a terribly serious business and I 
want you to put it right on your hearts. You have no 
right to ask men to climb the hills unless you can guide 
them. Can you guide them? I wonder a great many 
times how to get this greater efficiency, and I know only 
two ways. You may know many more; I know only two 
that help me. One that helps me more than any other is 
quietude, solitude, silence. You know that all the great 
leaders of men have felt this. Jesus often went into the 
desert and when he fought his biggest fight he fought it 
in the desert. Moses lived years in the desert and in 
silence. John Wesley spent years in the West Indies, out 


PERSONAL CONSECRATION 


231 


of his work and in silence. Paul, if I read rightly, went 
three years into the desert when he changed his theology 
and tried to find new grounds. Somehow, somehow, we 
must be alone with God before we can talk of God. And 
it is terribly difficult to get alone nowadays. I spent the 
usual amount of my life in college, preparing for the 
ministry. I spent fifteen years in the ministry in Eng¬ 
land, then I went to the desert for seven years, and when 
I look back I thank God more for those seven years than 
for all the fifteen that went before it. I don’t wish for 1 
a moment to cast any imputations on what I learned in 
college, but I learned more on the desert than ever I 
learned in college. I remember one morning especially— 
and excuse me for being personal, my subject is personal 
—I remember one morning climbing one of the hills. I 
started out perhaps at three or four o’clock. I was sup¬ 
posed to be camping out; I could not sleep, so I got up 
and climbed this hill, up through the brushwood and the 
undergrowth. Then suddenly I came out of the brush¬ 
wood on to the summit, right in a moment, and before 
me there stretched a view such as I had never seen before. 
I cannot explain, I could not think of describing it. Then 
there came over me somehow a feeling that I don’t know 
how to explain. I trembled, every part of me. I seemed 
to hear in the silence a voice I had never heard before. I 
knelt down there and in that wonderful silence I was 
nearer God than ever before in my life. No college ex¬ 
perience could have given me that. 

Friends, if you are going to talk about the Kingdom 
this winter, in silence, in quietude, speak with God your- 


232 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


self, ; and I think that will be one way of helpfulness. 

And will you let me mention another way? I do it 
tremblingly. I came, as you know, out of the so-called 
Orthodox faith, and in that so-called Orthodox faith we 
had one type of meeting that we do not have in our com¬ 
munion. Every morning in the vestry, twenty minutes 
before I went into the service, four or five men came. 
We all went on our knees and those four or five men 
prayed. Two or three of them were seers and they 
helped me wonderfully. How would it be this winter— 
I mention it very haltingly, but how would it be this win¬ 
ter, now that we are going to be speaking about spiritual 
things—how would it be if at times we get together and 
pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit? I don’t know how 
you would take it, but I yearn for something like that— 

for some man who has lived with God to come and bv 

•/ 

my side talk with me about my Father. I think we 
ministers should be happier if you laymen would at times 
join with us in prayer like this. 

I mentioned this yesterday at a Campaign meeting and 
I said quite casually, “Have you any men in this church 
who will do it?” and the women looked round at one an¬ 
other in astonishment. They could not think of the idea. 
Friends, we have dropped that idea too much. We have 
let the thought of prayer go too much. If we wish to 
speak of God we must know Him, and we cannot know 
Him without talking with Him by the way,—communion, 
as we call it, or prayer, if you like. 

Let me conclude by another little bit of experience that 
I lived through. It was very hot down on the plains in 


PERSONAL CONSECRATION 


233 


Texas and about eighty or a hundred miles away there 
was a range of hills that rose up twelve thousand feet. 
When we got worn down completely we would go on to 
those higher hills and it was quite an experience. We 
left the absolute desert where it rained perhaps once a 
year. As we began to go along we began to get into the 
shrubs and when we had wound through one or two can¬ 
ons we got into a well-wooded district and we heard the 
lushing of waters. And I remember my wife and I—it 
was the first time we had seen any water for three years 
that was clean—fit was all muddy water that came down 
from Colorado—my wife and I looked at it and said, 
“Look, there is clean water !” As you climb these hills 
you finally get into a verdure as beautiful as anything 
you see in Massachusetts. I said, “How is it that this 
land is so beautiful and everything else is desert?” I 
asked a good many and this is the explanation that was 
finally given me. They said, “These highest hills catch 
moisture that is driven in the upper air away from the 
Gulf of Mexico. They catch it and collect it and every 
day practically the year through there is a shower up 
there.” I know we went and every day we had a thun¬ 
der storm in the morning. Somehow the clouds brought 
the upper moisture collected on those great heights and 
then it poured down below and made that beautiful bit of 
greenery. 

Friends, every Christian man and woman lives up on 
the heights and collects, as it were, the rich secrets of 
God and then sends them down below to the friends on 
the plains. You and I have to live this winter on the 



2 34 


THE HILLS OF GOD 


heights. We have to collect the spiritual gifts of our 
Father and then we have to show them to our friends 
below and say to them, “Friends, come on back with us 
away to the heights; there we will show you the beauties 
of holiness.” 

This winter, you and I, experiencing different beati¬ 
tudes, have to speak of them to all whom we meet. God 
help us so to do. 


MESSAGES FROM THE CHURCH 

CALENDAR 











OUR LIFE AHEAD 


With the coming of October, we gather again, and 
unite in Christian worship and service. 

The Christian life has two phases—inner and outer, 
as Jesus put it, there is personal love for God, and love 
for our neighbor. For a full life we must seek God 
with our whole heart and soul, and serve man as we 
would ourselves. 

In the busy life of our cities we are apt to forget the 
former phase. We naturally seek to be “doing,” and 
unconsciously overlook the importance of “being.” 

Let us this winter cultivate our inner selves. The 
more efficient the lamp within the lighthouse, the further 
its gleams will shine, and similarly the purer and nobler 
our life within, the larger will be our sphere of service. 

Give some time each day to quiet thought with God, 
and let us make each Sabbath morning’s worship a real 
season of intimacy with our Father. Prepare yourself 
for the worship. Think of God as you arise, let your 
thoughts be Godward as you approach His House. Try 
a few moments of private worship ere the collec¬ 
tive worship commence. With such preparation in 
spirit, the Sanctuary will be filled with the glory of 
God. 

In touch with the Almighty, may we all acquire new 
graces and powers! 

If we so do, there need be no anxiety about our outer 
service. As the flower cannot but shed abroad its fra¬ 
grance, so the life in touch with God cannot but speak 
for its Master. If it be well within, it cannot but be 
well with all our church’s activities. 


237 


TO OUR YOUNG PEOPLE 

One of our young men recently said that if any one 
asked him why he was a Unitarian, he should find it 
hard to say. 

Whilst fortunately and desirably denominational bar¬ 
riers are breaking, yet as long as denominations remain 
we should be able to say why we prefer the one of our 
choke to others. For the sake, therefore, of our 
younger worshippers, I will say why I am a Uni¬ 
tarian minister, in the hope that my statement may sug¬ 
gest a reason for their being here to worship and work. 

I believe in God, Father of All, and that He is ever 
leading and helping. 

I believe one way in which He helps, is in the sending 
of men and women into the world to lead others, 
and that we are all sent with that purpose. 

I believe that the greatest leader hitherto is Jesus, 
and that his teaching and example show more 
plainly than any other the way God would have us 
live. 

I believe that it is my duty to try in all the ways I 
can to live the life that he set forth.” 

Of course there are other things that I believe 
respecting the various aspects of life, but the above is 
the foundation of my life. 

With such foundation the Unitarian Church is will¬ 
ing that I should be a minister within its order, but I do 
not know any other denomination that would be satisfied 
with that simple creed, hence I am a Unitarian minister. 

For the sake of comparison with the above, I advise 
that The Apostles’ and the Nicene Creeds be read, then 

238 


TO OUR YOUNG PEOPLE 


239 


the greater demands of those creeds will at once be felt. 

I cannot honestly say all that is in those two historic 
creeds, but I can say honestly what I have written above. 

Allowing liberty in interpretation of all creeds the 
Unitarian Church seeks the fellowship of all who love 
God and serve man. 


VISIONS 


I once lived for three years near Sheffield, and had 
each morning to walk about a mile through the city 
from the station to the college. As you know, Sheffield 
is a smoky city and rarely could one see far through the 
smoky pall. 

After I had been there for two and a half years, while 
crossing a small square, I saw down a diverging street a 
beautiful green hill. I stopped and gazed in amaze¬ 
ment, wondering where that hill had come from. It 
had, of course, always been there, but I had never seen 
it because the heavy atmosphere had intervened. 

The environs of Sheffield are beautiful, but the 
dwellers in the city get few views of those delectable 
regions. 

I wonder if there be not here a parable of life. We 
are compelled to busy ourselves in our daily tasks. The 
calls, claims, and anxieties of life are ever around, and 
often we cannot peer through the haze, and so we are 
apt to see little of other phases of life. Then, per¬ 
chance, for some reason, the mists separate and we see 
afar and upwards. 

The one day, at least for me, when the mists roll 
away, and I see the realms of the Spirit, is Sunday. I 
forget the material and see the immaterial. I forget 
earth’s discordant notes and hear the angels sing. The 
time of the day which helps me most is the hour of 
Worship; it is the hour of the week when I see the 
gardens of God surrounding the homes of men. The 
streets between those homes are clean and pure, noth¬ 
ing that defileth or worketh a lie being found therein, 
and instead of earth’s babel sounds divine music de¬ 
lights mine ear. 


240 


VISIONS 


241 


During this month, may the hill on which our church 
home stands, prove to be to us all the Mount of Vis¬ 
ion, and, strengthened and inspired by our blessings, 
may our month be one of noble life. 

Also, we pray that our visitors, whom we welcome, 
may get glimpses of the treasures of God, and hear His 
wonderful words of life. 


A NEW YEAR’S MESSAGE 


We are all entering on another stretch of life’s road. 
With the end of 1922 we passed another milestone, and 
now an unknown mile lies ahead. 

What will happen none know. Sometimes the road 
will be pleasant and easy, sometimes rocky and difficult. 
At times we shall have glorious vistas, at times we shall 
be encircled with fogs. Some days we shall have good 
companions, and some days it will be lonely and dis¬ 
heartening. Now and then, maybe, comrades will pass 
out of sight, and perchance we may not reach the next 
milestone. 

Our journeying, whether we recognize it or not, is 
after all, a travelling towards the City of God. Some 
day, either on this reach of road, or on one further 
ahead, we shall arrive at the gates of that City, and it 
is for us to see that we travel wisely and helpfully. 

How can we gain help as we go along? Friendly 
talks with persons and books will help, service will in¬ 
spire, now and then quiet thought and stillness will 
hearten, but the greatest help will be in joining in wor¬ 
ship and praise with our fellow-travellers. 

The old countries did not unwisely in placing along 
the road wayside shrines. We have our shrines; let us 
turn to them and lift our minds to God, and the in¬ 
spiration thus gained will assist in the distances ahead. 
A little chapel near Burnsall, in North Yorkshire, is to 
me a sacred spot. Father and I were on a walking tour 
and as we neared this little sanctuary, we heard the 
sound of singing. We turned in, and the help I gained 
is still with me. 

It may be that the help we gain in our Sanctuary will 
abide with us and brighten all our days ahead. Rest 

242 


A NEW YEAR’S MESSAGE 


243 


and worship frequently on your journey, and whether 
your experiences be joyous or painful you may use 
them so that through them you become stronger and 
kindlier men and women. 

I pray that in our Sanctuary wearied men and women 
may gain new strength, and earth’s discordant sounds 
be lost in the songs of the Angels. 


WHY THE CHURCH EXISTS 

Each society, association, or corporation has a reason 
for its formation. A corporation is formed for the 
purpose of supplying a certain need and reaping there¬ 
from a sum of money; a political club is formed to 
spread abroad certain ideas of government; a com¬ 
munistic association to teach certain principles of social 
life; a Masonic lodge to increase the number of Masons; 
a social club to cater to the pleasures of its members. 
With all societies a certain object is to be served. Simi¬ 
larly the Church has a basic reason, definite and dis¬ 
tinct, for its existence. 

Man recognizes that behind and in all life there is a 
mighty power, wondrous as the starry distances, and 
alluring as the noblest virtues. That Power he calls 
God. Man’s life at its best is a constant search after 
his God. 

The Churches exist to help in that search. That is 
the supreme reason for their being. No other society 
has the same aim, and no other association so great a 
purpose. All other work some one or other society 
can do better than the Church, but in this task the 
Church stands alone. It must be master in this field. 

Let us more and more give ourselves to our work, 
see that we fulfill our destiny, and help men and women 
to walk with God. If we fail, I see no other company 
to take up our task, and I see no hope for the present 
storm-tossed world. 

The Church has the greatest ideal in the world, let us 
give ourselves more and more to its realization. 


244 


THE SOURCE OF STRENGTH 


A celebrated European general once said that in every 
battle there came a point where both armies were just 
about defeated, and that all then depended on stamina. 
The side which could hold on most grimly was the side 
that won the victory. 

Similarly in life there come days or occasions when 
only by grimly holding on can existence either be endur¬ 
able or helpful. There come days when fate seems to 
group together its worst powers and send them collec¬ 
tively upon us. Work is hard to obtain, the future seems 
uncertain, home troubles arise, and health yields under 
the stress. All then depends on something within; if 
deep down within ourselves there is a steady unwaver¬ 
ing faith, or hope, or trustfulness, then the storm may be 
weathered; on the contrary if heart be lost, all is gone. 

Within us all there is what we call our real self, or 
soul, and as long as that is staunch all is well; with an 
unconquerable soul we are never defeated. 

So it is that the real task for us all is to find this inner 
strong self. All that can help to this end must be 
sought. Lives of other men, examples of heroes and 
heroines, friendships and heart to heart intercourse all 
aid, and perhaps more than aught beside the Church 
should be an ally and an inspiration. 

I often wonder if our Church thus helps; if it does, 
we have great cause to be thankful; if not, we should 
seriously seek the reason. 

Let us see to it that we all furnish our quota of help¬ 
fulness. Our soloists may sing some word that finds a 
lodgment in the heart and ever whispers of hope; a 
cheery greeting may give new power, and a pervading 
atmosphere of worship may be the instrument of won- 

245 


SOURCE OF STRENGTH 


46 

drous solace and balm. (We need to remember that 
our absence may chill, and our presence assist this 
atmosphere.) 

The writer of an old hymn said: “Such things were 
too painful for me until I went into God’s house.” 
That experience may be re-lived any day. It may be 
that men and women walk towards our Church with 
heavy hearts and doubting minds; life is too painful for 
them, and it may be that they return home with new 
joy and confidence. 

That there may be such transformation is my great¬ 
est desire, and I know that it is the desire of our wor¬ 
shippers. 

May our aspirations become realizations! 


LIGHT AFTER DARKNESS 


With the coming of April there arrives a new spirit 
on earth. The world has been winter bound, and for 
many weeks has endured the storm and stress. 

It has been a season of quiet, grim, passive resistance, 
but one morning we awake to a new feeling in the air, 
and a whisper of new life is heard in our lives and 
homes. Plants and animals seem to feel the same mys¬ 
terious thrill, a tiny creature scurries across the path, a 
blade of grass shows out beautifully green, and the spar¬ 
rows’ twittering is the first sound of the morning. 
Henceforward each day will reveal some fresh growth, 
and in a few weeks the whole landscape will tell of 
throbbing life. The Lord of life is no longer in the 
tomb, but is arisen. 

We no longer want to sing that grim old hymn: 

“O God our Help in Ages past,” 

but we find ourselves humming: 

“Let us with a gladsome mind 

Praise the Lord for He is kind.” 

We have crossed the threshold into a new life. As 
with the seasons, so is it with the whole of our story—a 
period of stress, a time of shadow, a season of deter¬ 
mined endurance, and then days of plenty and beauty. 
There are the hard days of ploughing and planting, and 
then the days of ingathering. We work out the plot of 
life, which is often confused and tangled, but the last 
chapter untangles the skein, and reveals the purpose of 
it all. 


247 


248 


LIGHT AFTER DARKNESS 


Shall crime bring crime forever, 

Strength aiding still the strong? 

Is it Thy will, O Father, 

That man should toil for wrong? 

No! say Thy mountains, No! Thy skies; 
Man’s clouded sun shall brightly rise, 

And songs ascend instead of sighs. 

Slowly and sometimes in pain the story of life is 
written. Some days we write in pain and anguish, and 
some days with thrilling pleasure. The various chap¬ 
ters have different refrains, but the closing words tell 
of a new heaven and a new earth. Each experience 
sounds its note, and in the end all will form a grand 
Hallelujah! 


A MESSAGE FROM REV. JOHN ELIOT, 
OUR FORMER PASTOR 


The following are extracts from a sermon preached 
by the Apostle Eliot. The original is in possession of 
the Historical Society, and has been translated by a 
friend. Translation is the right word to use as Mr. 
Eliot used a shorthand of his own which now is very 
hard to decipher. It is very interesting after a lapse 
of about 300 years to read words of the former great 
leader of this Church. 

“Do not let us be filled with fears & troubles, and 
perplex our spirits, for is not God our Father? Those 
that drown themselves in worldly cares are like father¬ 
less children, whereas we are the sons of God. Let 
us not be solicitously careful for the want of anything, 
nor be anxious & perplexed in regard of any person, 
nor yet be diffidently distrustful, rather let us make 
known our supplications & requests to the Lord with 
Thanksgiving.” 

“You would call him a silly child that should vex 
& disquiet himself how he should be clad, and how he 
should live when he had a kind father to take care of 
him: so unwise & foolish are we when we moyle & 
trouble ourselves about this life, what we shall eat & 
drink, and how subsist.” 

“Here I might take up a little complaint against our¬ 
selves. Where is the man in whose heart the Spirit of 
God dwells, reigns, & rules? who preserves the clear 
light & glorious manifestations of the grace & love & 
glory of God which the spirit sometimes lets into our 
minds & consciousness? who maintains and cherishes 
those sweet & precious affections towards God and 

249 


250 


MESSAGE FROM PASTOR 


Christ’s love to him, and delights in longsuffering & 
hungering & thirsting after him?” 

“Dream not of golden days, look not to be free from 
sorrow and trouble, for we need emptying from vessel 
to vessel otherwise we should settle upon our cots.” 


CHURCH UNITY 


There is much talk of Church Unity, and it is well 
that it is so. Men and women are more and more feel¬ 
ing the folly of doctrinal divisions, and so plans for 
organization are being put forth. But, up to the pres¬ 
ent, no plan has been published that has appealed very 
strongly to me, for each and every one that I have seen, 
have made too many demands—none have the simplicity 
that I crave. All make too many demands. 

If we ask the astronomer about his field, he will say, 
“I know very little; my instruments but introduce me 
to distances that appall—I do not know.” 

If we turn to the geologist, he concludes his answer 
by telling how little he knows. 

All scholars alike, after telling of some of the things 
which they have learned, confess their ignorance. Of 
the vast creation’s language, we know but the alphabet. 
Every field of knowledge is bounded on all sides by 
limitless stretches concerning which we all can only say, 
“I' do not know.” 

If this be so with Creation, much more must it be so 
with the Creator. 

Still, strange to say, we are apt to claim to know the 
ways of The Lord of All, but if scholars dare 
not be dogmatic concerning any one field of life, much 
less should we dogmatize as regards The Lord of Life. 

All we can ask is that we walk reverently before the 
Eternal Light, seek ever for more light, and adore the 
glory that gladdens our eyes. 

The great basis of union is a reverent, worshipful 
spirit. I will worship with any who are seeking God, 
but I will be silent when they recite their creeds. 

251 


252 


CHURCH UNITY 


Granted this reverential worship, there will follow 
service of man. 

Search and service are the fundamentals of life. 

When we of the churches are humble enough to get 
down to these two simple demands, then real unity will 
be possible. 













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